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1 

This hyar Is GIGO (Garbage In, Barbage Out), Palantir of the wise, tfourna 
of the learned, guide of all gifted scryers. It is available to all the 
lesser people of the world for 50^/1 or 6/$2.50 (NOT 5/$2.50, as Scott 
keeps insisting whenever he plugs me in his zine), and is available from 
Greg Costikyan of l6?5 York Av, NY, NY, 10028. It is a multi-fandom 
genzine, reflecting the editors interests. The editor isn't really sure 
what is going on, but he thinks things are going well, generally. 
Also available from the same person at the same address are; 

Urf Durfal, a Dipvariant playtestlng zine and wierd wargame zine., availab 
at cost plus postage (ie, send me some money and I tell you when it runs 
out.) There are openings in numerous games at the moment. 

Fire the Arquebusiers! , a fantasy - wargaming and D&D zine. Available fpJ? 
the same fee ajS GIGO. 

The following Diplomacy variants: Excommunication! , Diplomafla, Utter 
Chaos, Near Utter Chaos. Any or all for an SASE. 

Rules for a variation on the board game Frigate, entitled Frigg It! 
.also for an SASE. 

The house rules to Urf 'Durfal, also, also for an SASE. 

Oh, yes. This is issue printed approximately September 21, 1975. 



Table of Contents ' 1 

The Editor Fills Space(me) 2 

Responses to the Questionnaire (Various and sundry) 3 

Sauron's Dwimmerlaik (Scott Rosenberg) 5 

Absynthe and Cannabis (Gerard Houarner) 6 

Epistles From Hither and Yon (Ye Readership) 9 

DftpConi Collatingcon; a New York wargaming con? (me) 17 

The Overkill Genre /Charles Jacques) ■ • 19 

Wargame Reviews (me) 2^ 

A Conventional- Dirge (me) 25 

Fanzine Reviews (me) 28 

Hugo Awards 30 

Thid is DipCon??? How Come Everyone is Playing D&D? (me) 30 

Star Trek Lives (me) ' 35 
Some Letters That I thought I Didn't Have Room ; For, But Now That 

I've Decided To Make This Issue 48 Pages, I Do. 36 
Excerpt From "My Summter Weekend On Nantucket" (Kasanof, : Rosen- 
berg, Me) 37 
Anyway, Back to Some More Letters (various and sundry) : 37 
Wargaming Column, or a Reasonably Facsimile. Thereof (me) , 39 
Byte It( (John Liberman) h2 
Spacefiller 

Monty Python Biographies k-S 

A Unified Field Theory of Sclbence Fiction (Albert Einsteflm) k% 

Robot Redux (Isaac Asimov) 50 

I'm Really Kfcrt Vonnegut. (Philip Jose Farmer) 52 

Who Is this "Farmer" Fellow (Kurt Vonnegut) . ' 5^ 
Who Is Vonnggut, and What is this About Farmer (Kilgore Trout) 56 

Wait A Moment, I'm Kilgore Trout (Theodore Sturgeon) 58 

I'm Really Kurt Vonnegut (Kilgore Trout) 60 

I'm Really Philip Jose Farmer (Theodore Sturgeon) 62 
Wait, When They Said An SF Author In Peoria, They Meant ME 

(Thomas S. #11 se) 65 

I'm Really Qordwaine> Smith (Philip Jose Farmer) 67 

This Has Gone Far Enough (Paul Linefearger. deceased) 70 

Hey, What's Going @n Here (Harlan Ellison) ; 72 

You're Thinking of Cordwainer Elxd, Harlan 78 

Oh (Harlan Em son) . . 80 



2 

Hallelujah. Here I sit. It's now 1 : 30 Pw » 7509.21, I've been typing for 
the last 8 hours, off and on, and this is the last stencil. I never thought 
I'd be done and neither did you, I'm sure. 

Well, this only makes GIGO six weeks late. 

The post offal has pulled a quick one on all us third class users. Third 
class used to be 1 Op for the first two ounces and3^ for every ounce therea- 
fter. Nqvt it's for the first two ounces, and 6^ for every 'two ounces 
thereafter. < " 

This fact, coupled with the fact fehat I'm doing a lot more than I used to, 
and I^ve also now got school to eat up ray time-, forces me to go quarterly. 
I'll remain nominally 36 pages for the next while, although the new' postage 
thi*ig means I can print up to 48 pages and mail it for the sam price as 
36. So issues will be somewhere between 36 and ^8. 

I'm sorry GIGO i S ao late. The reason it is, is a combination of -poor 
planning (like not having enough paper to print the damn thing at the 

beginning of the weekend ever try to find mimeo paper on a Saturday?), 

laziness and overwork. 

But here is is at last. , 

At present it is pouring outside, if that makes any difference, and I feel 
rather exhausted. If I can get hhis last page done, I can go to sleep. 

Curiosly, I cannot remember half the -things I've said this issue- — which 
is a rather disconcerting feeling. I feel sure that I've made a tffool of 
mjiself on numerous occasions. 

Ah, well. If I've made a fool of myself, my friends will be the first to 
point it out. 

Next issue, in keeping with the quarterly schedulre, will be printed (I hfppe ) 
in December. Preferably in the vacation, when I'll have a little time to 
60 something. In the meantime, those who cannot bear to go without my 
inane maunderings for such a lengthy period of time can contrive to get 
Urf Durf al of FTAi . q ' 

I went out a little earlier — around 11 — to. get some. Coke. There was nothing 
drinkable in the fridge.' That is to say, there was a little orange juice, 
but I've been drifelcing orange juice all afternoon. At that time it wasn't 
raining yet, and the full moon could be seen, almost directly east. Down 
at the foot of 88 St, past Hast End avenue, I could see Grade Mansion 

1 ooking a bit like a forlorn duck. The streets were relatively empty- 

two or three people walkind up and down — but traffic was fairly biisy. - 

The Deli was somewhat dimly lit, and, for some reason, there was water on 
the floor. T side-stepped it somewhat gingerly, and hunted around till 
I found a large-sized bottle of coke. I took it to the counter, were I 
passed over ray 79^ bottle of coke, and recieved in return a $pper bag and 
a receipt. After a" was out of the door with the bag, I though I ought not 
to have taken the bag. Waste of paper, don't you know. But then, I 
was already out the door. 

Why am I telling you this? W e ll, it fills space. 

Dosvidanya* s ee you next issue. Only the issue is only beginning for 
you. Well, Pajalwista. Drasvichye. Not that I know what any of those ' 
words mean, but Russian always sounds nice. 



3 

RESPONSES Tt THE QUESTIONNAIRE 



Why.haven't you subscribed? Or why have* you subscr bpd f-^r that matter? 
N©.;Not sufficient materiel of interest to metWflat's it to you Jack:?; 
Cause I can get it for freejl have sor* spare money at the moment & I owe 
you something for those two samples. I'* subscribe to the Nasi Party of 
America's journal if they sent me two samples; I d|* l t need to. I get 
a freelbie, remarber? However, if I ti4n't get a free issue I would subscrit 
Why? Who knows? Maybe I'm a glutton for ; punishment . 

What, if anything, do you like about GIGt? 

Zero; Its humor and reviews; It's absurdity; Flippant remttrks - .it annoys 
the Post Office - it' has a lot of - shite paper good for the. guest- bathroom - 
. it : 4oesn l t jraell up the place too badly; The Tolkien expose, most of the 
columns, lo more game , reviews y please; -As a whole — ^he comics column 
.((this one is from the comics columnist)) the fantasy •olumn, the Editor 
Fills Spaca, and the wargami»g column; 

What don't you like? 

My name and address on your mailing list; I don't dislike anything, I 
merely lack interest in some, features; the mimeography; I'm not a comic 
freak & rather ((undecipherable)), but it's all pretty ( (undecipherable) ).; 
REPRODUCTION! * Th« worst I've ever seen; That crazy women's libber, the 
-computer column, people who frint APA without telling you what it Beans. 

Do you know what GIGf- stands for? No? Illiterate swine. 

Literate swi»e?; Yes, you've been explicit; I love you, too; Cras is, 
crazy are'; Since you finally mentioned it in your editorial, I assume this 
is a trick question designed to see if I read the issue. Y#U CANT FOOL 
THE EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH SMtIRE, ROMAN COW! ; Y«p! doesn't it mean "MUiom 
Gigofahrad? Gigotan?; The fact that you don't run previous issue circul- 
ation figures. I am a freak for things like that. Come on Greg 'be 
a statistician. 

((In reponse to th*e next six questions:)) YES! Anything to g#t you out of 
my hair \ . 

Bo you think a computer column is necessary? 0 i 

No;If you think so. Are computers necessary? Is the. word necessary? Ah 
Horatio, if 'I knew the question to this answer, I would truly be a aueer 

young -man; No;Well John does a decent job an. a computer column but 

h§ takes for granted that everybody understands the basic elements of 
computers. True, some of us are ignorant swine, but we can be helped. Just 
ask John to start of with a series of simple language computer lectures 
dealing with basic computer terminology, working up to the difference bet- 
ween analog and digital computers, then working up to the ultimate* how 
to rip off computers without getting caught. This type of set-up would 
be appreciated. ((Good lord, you* wa»t him to teach you Fortran?;) i 

Bo you think a fantasy, column is necessary? 

.Yes; Are you trying to tell, me something ((from my fantasy columnist).)- 
" noj^Bef inately! Gerard Houa»ner is fantastic! If I could write "like : ' 

him, I'4 be all set. If you dump the fantasy column, I'll scream a»d 

burn your Df>p board. •* 

Bo youthink a Star Trek column is nenessary? 

No;No (Actually, yes --a column ot Trekkies marching into the; Hudson River)- 
On an irregular basis; It's hard to tell. I haven't seen one in A issues„ 

Bo you»think a Biplomacy column is necessary? 
' No; Yes; Yes'; Touchy. As I have -stated before, I have yet .to play my first 
game. $10 iff kind of stiff. Still, I am determine*. However, since you 
are planning to do a Bipzfcne on Biplomacy variants, why not relocate 
the Pipcolumn ((Fecause in Urf Burfal, it wouldn't 15© telling anyone * 
anything they didn't already know.)) To create an equal balance v do the " 
zine on variants, then io a ° or * page colum*. on normal- Diplomacy . : 



Do you think a wargaming column is necessary 

No; 1£L1, if by "necessary," you mean "does -my Life depend on 1 1 T would ^- 

have to answer in"th negative. - 0n\ the other ha^d, if you moan "Would I "Mk© 
to see it continued^, oti a:; Bide" Monday would~T. say"no, and on a Vanilla Friday 
. I'd say "cteerries pl e a.se." *Yes . :Ye% Yesp Yes.- Very firm on that. 1"- 
am just getting started on the Twargamlng habbys and th* last hhing 1 np^d 

is^io be left high aM"dry.%" I~rieed7,to know wnat 1s going-on, what Ts crtm- 
,..ing out new, etc. '"^s, ie-ave' it ;tn .. . • 

Do you think a "Comics column is_%*cesSa?y ? ■■ • — - - 

No; I do^'t^eyen think comi'cs S're"nece5sary; Yes* What hav© I ever donV 
to you? Are^you trying to make . me'' lose mf-. only- steady 1ob? "*0f course - 
I think its %cej3sa^y.' Not onl^. fr.om. a ■ perscmal^point of view, "But b^c- 

M ause conicdom Is "rapidly becoming .a cancer spreading to afl areas of" 

■■-the world. YouF comment -oh' Canada sta.rt.1cig its.' own comic company proves 
my -point, Since' comicdom is important to fandom, 1t would b lunacy to 
cut the comic column. .' . - '' 

Would you like to see;-S r fiim column,?, , ; ~* r. . ' " ".. 

Yes. .But I seldom"^©-- films* ;te^h, know 1 where: -I 3an f tnd ■ oneV?" -Qnf*aTf i r- 
regular basis ; Sure, -.-t . , . , : I.f you ^<Jo a column,, make- sure that T*pr,ard Hou- 
arper* is made aware that, he can "slrill . r.ev1*?w films..*... ' c 

#ou'lc*you like to see- an ATA column . *>-. " 

• No;'N«,why do you a$k*&;..' An< APA. list, perhaps-.- What ' sVAPA ? A Computer?- 
American Police Association?: A%«J u^ferstand .1tV orily"fan>l ne editors 
would be interested? in-'APA..! Why alienate yeur. other-Peaders ? - • / "VV. 

What* other columns would.* you>l ike. to s'ee? • - • 7*. '■]' " "■■ 

Some about ftld-time. pf authors]* A^colurfn" ofi* sexual detfl anions (which T " 

: would gladly do---it would 'give me, > .cHaince to '"do s*me research aUd mayb^ 
. even earn credit tOrwards : a flegr^e'^' ' t)'on r t ask what>degree- T causn t'd - j . 
only answer **.the third."); How, .about, a- record column? How about one wr- 
itten on more general hobbies?":' -» ■ ^ ^ 

Should I junk the column system? ■ ' ~ ^ • '- 

No; NO: You do and I r ll 3ui£ as"'your"columnist'* ffou are trying to put^mo 
(and a couple of other p^rf eci; 1 'y honest, fa© : wr? trfrs) nut ^f a iob ? arr>n.':t» 
you? ■ " ; -■''.*/:■-. ^ , .;• • o.; 

Wou-14#you like to write sometrhitig f or GIttO ? *- • . ^ ■ 

Wo; # How about a column on Zeppelins;?. "Sow a'Bout a "Fans of^Tibet"' coiumn?*-'- 
Yes — I ddfP't' know. . .Everytime I try' to ;f write something decent.. Absynthe • •- 
and Cannabis comes out. ^ '■<~ J - * 

Would- you like* to have a demmn strati on game of -Diplomacy played in GIGO? 

Jfo;No';Ye'S'|'Sure . Why not? ' ■ ; * 

Bo you consider yourse.y primarily afi' sf fan , a -wargaming fan. a comics fan afi S r 
a fantasy fan, a Dip Y fan, a computeri^Jreak" -or -what ^' 
(( "Comics fan" , "ST fan", and "computer freak" crossed out. Below fan 
is written;)) ST -yes, but. I'm not a r Trekkie:Mn s-f /fantasy fatt with strong 
desires 'to screw around: A^fantasy -fan *, 5 wa^garnlng fan;" I guess I^am 
generally a sci-fi/Star-Trek fan, with heavy emphasis on" comic's, f I Sfov 

beginifltng to look appeSliilg." 
Should I cut back 'on ripe ••rB^S.ews ? : ~* 
Na;No* ;No ;Who cares? ~|4igth* as *well keep them filler, and you might run sbrn^ 
ads Into ((undecipherable)); No " . v * 

Why do yyu read^GIGO? If you don't, why a'?e yota sending tfhts^tp 'me?.,. 

Because you very kindly sent it to me;, Because its „fi}^re-*.\ Because' -T T m ■ .i "* i - 
iterate.- I T m answering s^ypu'll ftf5ow be Jx^ft thai* ' t o pul^.; such a' dumb 
stunt in the future: ; Vanity.- . I like to 'see- my stuff in 'print., . 



hdwe^ne?/ budding . Wargaming, Di pi Dmacy^',' fantasy" ' and computers ■ are 



5 

Notes on the change In typeface; My mother's? typewriter has been broken 
for the past year. While I was away- she, for some idiotic reason, deci- 
ded that there was something wrong with my typewriter. True, the back- 
plate was falling off, but there was nothing really wrong with the 
thing. In any case, she had both mine and hers carted off to be mended. 
As you can see by glancing at the previous page, when I type an "e" 
on my typewriter, the bottom half of the upper case letter is typed 
a line above where I'm typing the "e," 



So I'm switching to this Coronet Electric portable, 
the IBM electric is fixed. 



It will do me until 



Additional comments i 

Is Devra Langsam Tibetan? 

How about a $58 award for everyone who answers this? 



^(Interesting typewriter; the "x" isn't repeating, but the "z" is.) 

SAURONS'S DWIMMERLAIK 

a filksong sung to the tune of "Johnson's Motor Car." 
By Scott Rosenberg 



And once we've got our flier 

we Ml .make -haste to Orthanc. 

And when that Sharkey's done with 

our masters we will thank. 

Over the fields of Gondor 

a. little ride we'll take, 

and we'll give those there a 

bloody bad scare 
On Sauroii's dwimmerlaik. 



Oh, down by Nen Hithoel 1 / 

One mornin' I did stray. / 

I met a fellow Nazgul / 

And to me he did' say, / 

"We've orders from the Witch King / 

Towards Orthanc haste to make, / 

but how are we to -get there / . 

without a Dwimmerlaik?" / 

"Oh, Rider dear, be of good cheer / 
I'll tell ye my black plan. / 
We'll travel through the Marshes / 
Ne'er -to be stopped by man. / 
Through ? Dagorlad we'll hasten / 
and when with, mud we're caked / 
We'll wish we'd died or had a ride / 
on Sauron's Dwimmerlaik. / 

/ 

When we approach the Morannon / 

We'll give the lads a shout. / 

We'll tell them all to hurry, / ' ■ 

And what it's all about. / 

We'll send Lugburz a messages / 

•Prepare, for Morgdth's sake, / 

a steed for us to ride on — / 

like one o' your Dwimmerlaik." / 

NOTE 1 The word "dwimmerlaik" appears but once in the LORD OP THE RINGS, 
in the following quote from Eowyni "Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of 
carrionl Leave the dead in peace!" She. says this to the Witch King or 
to his mount; it is uncertain which. The "Guide to Middle Earth" inter- 
prets it as being said to The Witch King, and thus interprets "dwimmer- 
laik" to mean him. I disagree; it' seems to me most likely that a "lord 
of carrion' would be a bird. Thus, the dwimmerlaik reffered to in the 
above filksong is the mount of the Nazgul. 



6 

Shit, man, I need a hit. Quick, gimmee anything ya got, I'll even take 
dried insect turd if it'll get me hifeh. C'mon, c'mon, hurry it, will 
ya. Yeah, sure you can have my sister. 

WELL, MR. CONSUMER, YOU'RE IN LUCK TODAY, BECAUSE I JUST HAPPEN 
TO HAVE A NICKLE BAG OF 

** ABSYNTHE AND CANNABIS ** 
(KING OF KINGS, HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH!) 

Gerard . Houareer 

How many of you wili cop to the fact that you haven't read the classics? 
I- don't mean The -= Story, of 0 or Prarie Fire , but the biggies in fantasy 
and science fiction. How many of you have read Frankenstein (I have *nt 
but I'll get around to it, really, .Mr. Professor, I promise I'll have 
it done next week) or Dracula . or Alice In Wonderland , or the major w 
works of H.G. Wells and Edgar Allen Poe . Well? 

You really should, you know. Not only will you be a crashing bore at 
the next party you attend, telling everyone how Wells was an idealist 
or Poe a necrophiliac (thereby in the same stroke revealing your ig- 
norance), but you will have some basic knowledge with which to evaluate 
current works. 

Take Dracula . Please. I contains a wealth of information on the vam= 
pire, including his powers and habits, and yet how many of you have 
passed it up in favor of the latest DRACULA funny book on the stands, 
or the latest Chris Lee entry into the Halls of Hammer? 

If there is one thing Dracula has, it's mood. The four opening chapt- 
ers, though somewhat wordy, are beautiful in that they slowly reveal 
the danger and conflict situation through subtle hints and some nofa- 
so-subtle action. The food Jonathan Harker eats in the area of 
Dracula*s castle (Stoker takes the trouble to give his readers a full' 
account- of what the man eats) is full of strong spices, and everybody 
knows Vampires hate garlic (which, one assumes, is in among all that 
pepper and paprika.) The terror of the Roumanian peasants as they 
travel in the night, the sound of wolves, the warnings Harker recieves 
about Dracula, all lend to a very fantastic atmpsphere. 

There are, however, severe problems wit the book. One of them is the 
constant melodrmmatics that is so common in bad 19th Century novels 
(and bad novels in all periods, for that matter.) Every second page 
someone is breaking down and weeping or sobbing, or worse yet, groaning 
at someone else weeping. It gets pretty seedy at times. Another pro- 
blem is the way the diary and journal keepers always manage to put 
down conversations word for word, even down to the Cockney accents, or 
Van Helsing's peculiar speech mannerisms. I wasn't too thrilled with 
th ending, either. There is a long chase as Van Helsing leads his 
band of vampire hunters against Dracula, and, melodramatic effects 
aside, it's not a bad sequence. Unfortunately, old Drac is- so easily 
killed that it hardly seems like it was worth all the trouble. His . 
gypsy aides prove so incompetent that it is a wonder he survived all. 
those centuries with help like that. But the c-rowiifcng moment of lit- 
erary blindness comes with the useless death of one ofi the major char- 
acters. The man was never that well defined anyway, so the reader is . 
neither shocked, nor left with a feeling of "I-told-you-so. " It's a 
sour ending, not worthy of the power of Dracula. 



And if I can bother you with anotherproblem with the book, let me tell 
you about the "good" characters. I have rarely seen such a collection of 
emotional, simple and blind heroes in one book. It is truely amazing. 
One woman; a friend of the Helsing group, is turned into a vampire and 
is destroyed by the group. They are thus acquainted with Dracula's power 
and influence over minds (especially female minds — the women are oh so 
delicate that it makes me sick,) they know that one of his "bases" is righl 
next door to where a wife of one of the vampire -hunters is staying, and 
they have good reason to suspect that Dracula knows he is being hunted, 
yet they take no precautions in guarding this woman. Not only do they 
fail to notice her change in habits, but they have to wait until a lunatic 
spills the beans before they discover that something is wrong with the 
woman. Even she fails to notice that she is falling under Dracula 1 s 
spell (and believe me, that is something you'd notice.) 

But don't let these problems put you off. Dracula has some very good ■ 
moments, and it fos one of those books you really have to read in order to 
get a decent understanding of a) the vampire and b) how not to write. 

Listna, even Baird Searles (paragon of mediocre f.taste in film fantasy for 
F&SF) admitted that he had never read Frankenstein , and that's been filmed 
so many times that people are beginning, to believe that what they see on 
the TV screen is true ! Everybody knows (or should) that Mary Shelley's 
version is the one, original and truest story of them all. 

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: A MAN STANDING ON HIS HEAD 
AND BEING CASTRATED BY THE FEMALE MAN * ., 

When I first read The Female Man . I was afraid to review it. I didn't 
know what to make of it. Surely Joanna Russ, the deadly critic and staunch 
supporter of women's rights wasn't advocating the castration of mankind, 
was she? I hoped, I prayed that it was all some kind of mistake, or may- 
be a joke. Unfortunately, the dust has settled, and apparently The 
' Female Man is for real. Or I should say, it exists. 

For reality has very little to do with what goes on in Joanna Russ ' 
book or characters, and fantasy must have a base in reality in order to 
be effective. The dildo is a device for female stimulation (read mastur- 
bation), so why two women who are intent upon making love to each other 
wbuld resort to an artificial device when they have tongues (I believe 
it is called "frenching", thereby explaining a subtle, pun in the name 
Flying Frenchman which nobody ever got. Oh well) amd fingers is a mystery 
beyond my imagination. But this is just being picky (just as Joanna fiuss 
was being picky when she pinned Philip Dick for portraying a sadistic 
woman that also collects bondage photo's. ) It is the least of Joanna 
Russ ' problems • 

The Female Man is to the women's movement and humanity in general what 
Nixon was to the government of the United States. All Nixon wanted to do 
was make this country the most powerful in the world, but he got a little 
over-zealous. (So what's censorship, elimination of political enemies and 
the destruction of the individual compared to being the most important 
man on earth? I wonder if. Nixon is impotent.) In the same way, Joanna 
Russ seems to have taken on the task of elevating all women to a level 
where they don't need men, where they nan exist in a female paradise 
(Whileaway) in perfect bliss and happiness and without any of those filthy, 
alchohol-smelling, largely endowed and generally porky males hanging 
around, thank you. To quote a woman's movement party-line, "you're for- 
getting about the other half of the population." 



8 

Joanna Russ ' male characters are so openly agressive, so belligerent, so 
worldly (In the way a man from the South Bronx can be worldly— fuck 'em 
and leave em), that they are nothing more than gross caricatures. The 
men are portrayed as the self-confident and assertive dominants and the 
women are portrayed as having nothing better to talk about than fashions. 
My God, if things were that way, then men really should be in charge aro- 
und here, and the women should be nothing moB than slaves. But it simply 
ain*t so. Men have hang-ups, just like women. Most guys I know are rat- 
her shy and nervous when they start talking to a woman, and they wouldn'J 
dream of rubbing themselves up against her and making snide insinuations 
and .advances like the men in Suss 1 book. And we have ego problems when 
dealing with women, just as women have ego problems dealing with men. 
Yet JOanna Russ seems to ignore this, and instead indulges herself in. a 
black and white, "I'm .good and, you're evil" fantasy. She ignores, basic 
human psychology (anima ancf-animus, anyone?); she - laughs at plotting., [ 
tension, characteriszation and interplay; she gives. the women's movement, 
a kind of Hitler Youth image, and she manages to alienate any middle-ov- 
the-roaders with insulting images of male oinkdom that' **ent out with Dor- 
is Day pictures. 

Let me try to be, once again, specific. Joanna and all her other "selves" 
have problems. There is not one passage in the entire book where one of 
the female characters relates to a man as an" equal. The Joanna females 
are either deferential towards men, or, like Janet from Whileaway, so su- 
perior that men must run from her or fall to their knees and kiss her ass. 
That is an oversimplification of male/female relationships, to say the 
least. 

I suppose Russ hopes that, by being dogamatic, by mouthing the party line 
of the most radical branch of feminism, and by tagging a little disclaim- 
er, -on so that any male who canned her .book would feel properly guilty, s 
she would pull off the literary bombshell of the year. She failed. Her 
intentions were bad, her execution was terrible and her reasons for writ- 
ing this turkey are, for me at least, very cloudy. It's a lousy feeling, 
when you see- one ; of your heroes (or heroines) fall apart under pressure. 

PS- In the grand tradition of the above authoress, I will now proceed to 
write a disclaimer. I read The Female Man in March, which is quite some 
time ago. The only reason I talked about it here is because Greg chose . 
to publish two really shitty reviews on the book. I don't think I did 
such a great job, but I do believe I pretty much stuck to the book and m 
more or less presented my view of why it failed. 

AND SO, RENFIEIB, YOU CHOSF, TO IGNORE MY WARNING,. EH? 

Alas, some poor loccer in the last issue of GIGO has not been reading the 
entire text of ray column. Douglas Carey (no relation to New York's ex- 
cuse for a governer, by any chance?) has complained that I did not pro- 
. vide any prfcces or titles of famous fantasy classics, yet I clearly re- 
member listing the address of T-K> Graphics (PO Box 1951 » Baltimore MD t< 
21:203) which publishes a free and very complete- "fantasy' and science 
fiction list (they even have prices, and would you believe every book 
on the list is for sale?) He also complained of not being able to tell 
the difference between one of C.S. Lewis' theology lectures and his fan- 
tasies. Well, I have the same prfolem. I can't tell his fantasies from 
his lectures, even if they say fantasy on the cover. However, I don't 
think too many of his non-fiction bookfc are floating around in bookstores 
to accidentally pick up, and anyway, you can always open the book and read 

a page so you know what you're getting. 

*** . 

Wow, that was some trip, man. Remind me never to buy anything from you 
again. 



9 

EPISTLES FROM HITHER AND YON 
Note on the following letter: 

In the days of yore, the was a Diplomacy fanzine edited by four high 

shhool kids Nick Ulanov, Gil Neiger, Duncan Smith, and a mythical 

being who was the Invention of the previous three, Penelope Naugh- 
ton Dickson. Two of the three were also wargamers, and thus often 
appeared at the gates of Simulations Publications Inc on Friday 
nights to playtest. 

There they met a number of other, younger persons, and converted them to 
the mystic creed of the Diplomacy hobby. 

Eventually two fo the three passed on (id, went to college,) but the other 
stayed on, and took over the reigns of that magazine. A number of young 
New Yorkers grew. out of the bunch from Simulations, and they x formed what 
was, essentially,' a third New York group. ( (The other two being, the TDA 
group and the older fans. ) ) ' ' ' , 

In any case, this group grew and continued to grow.. And magazine spawned 
magazine, kntll the magazines printed by "The Pouch group," as it was known 

after the magazine of yore, reached the number of well, quite a few, 

anyway • 

But, in its latter days, "The Pouch group " became afflicted with the name 
"The New York Conspiracy." Misnamed, I might add. The tarm New York 
Conspiracy was originally Invented by Rod -Walker as an appelation to the 
TDA group, headed by; John Beshara with: whom Rod Walker had been feuding for 
years . 

In any case, due to the unfortunate tendency to sap "dud", and shorten 
names to a minimum, the Lingua Nova Yorka Conspiratoria was invented. 

The word "dud" was the first word in thfts language and some feel it will 

be the ultimate word. "Dud" according to its dictionary definition means 
flat failure. It has come to mean a number of things; "that's too bad," 
"that didn't work out as I had plannedm" "Moron," "that's strange!", 
and so on. It can be used as a verb ("dud out!"), a nound (That's a 
dud,") and an adjective ("He's a dud player.") In various forms it 
has even been used as an adverb ("He played duddishly,") an ejaculation 
( "DUD 1 9 and a pronoun. ("Dud dudded out.") Noone has been able to use it 
as a preposition, yet, though. 

And then game the names. They began when Gil Neiger attempted to list 
Nick Ulanov's name as "Nick'The Dud' Ulanov," and instead typed "Tud-dud. " 
Nick became known as Tud-dud. 

Soon, others had knlcknames; Gil was Glam; John Boardman was Borp; Bob r -. 
Li pt on was Bipt; Scott Rosenberg was Dot; Matthew Diller was Dil; I was, 
in quick succesion, Grog, Costo, Cost and Gust; and the list goes on and 
on. ' / 

The list goes on and on. /Diplomacy has, like science fiction fandom, 
begun to develop a jargon of .%ts pwn. 

Anyway, all this may help explain some of -the usages in the following 
letter. ((Oh, yes; the nickname to the z^ine £i.nnungagap is Ginnunganung^ 
anunganunganunganunganunganunganunganunganungani^ etc . ) ) 



10 



((Scott Rosenberg, 182-31 Radnor Rd ( Jamaica, NY, 11-4-32)) 

Dear Short-amd-pocket Armenian; 

Since you fired me. for not writing reams and reams of materiel for your 
dudzine (a new fannish term?) I now. fefcl compelled to write reams and reams 
of materiel for your dudzine showing you up as a dud. 

Re Richard Loomi s 1 comments . about rairaeos growing up into offsets: this only 
occurs when the user performs unnatural acts on the machine (such as using 
it feo print' computer games and . the like.) In any event, any offset machine 
produced by these unholy processes should be shunned as being the worst of 
the worst, of the offset machines. 

Re Rod talker's comments: no, Greg, I knew about the PDfi and the N3F Games' 
Bureau: — I did not leave them out from ignorance of hobby events previous to 
my entry. Simply note that all the organizations Walker mentions have one 
aspect in common: they didn't do anything. The N3F games bureau, as I und- 
erstand it, was not strictly Diplomacy anyway. In any case, as far as 
most people k were concerned, TDA was the first FUNCTIONAL hobby-wide organ- 
ization (not limited to GM-publi shers . ) 

Bod probably responded to my article because hfc is involved in a feud with 
John Beshara who heads up (and IS) TDA. My treatment of TDA in the column 
oerhaps offended Walker because I tr$£d to make it neutral*. Well, if it 
will make Rod feel .any better (no pun intended) I will state personallytoere 
that my opinion of TDA is' that its the bi'ggest farce in the hobby, -that the 
hobby would be better off without it, and that if John 3eshara ever makes 
me miss Monty Python again I will personally start ; a ten-year feud with him. 

Ditto machines are inherently more fannish than offset, and therefore more 

acceptable but the Mimeo Mythos Society does not particularly support ; 

their use. Ditto machines require less work and less TLC to operate than 

mimeos hell, it's reached the point where. I can't let anyone else use ray 

mimeo because only tl know its strange quirks and habbits. The relationship 
between the user and the machine process becomes very close--and no unnatur- 
al act- jokes here, please! 

Greg, no one will ever write the definitive history of the Dip hobby — it's 
impossible. The closest thing would be to have EIsfERYONE write his own per- 
sonal hobbyhi story and then tie them all together with a chronology of known 
facts • ((The known facts is all that has to go into an history. Personal 
opinion and interpretation of events is irrelevant. Only a few people are 
so emotionally involved with the events i'n the Dip hobby as to let it cloud 
their judgement to that extreme,)) 

^,ach person has his own idea about -what's happened people can't even agree 

on what's happened within the past few days, let alone months or years.' 

Someone tell William B19ss to either write letters when he is NOT high, or 
?o see a psychiatrist. 

As to Gerard Houamer's comments, he is obviously so ignorant of the situ- 
ation in New York that he has no right to comment about it. (I suppose 
GIGO is the only New York zine he gets.) He doesn't realize that I publ- 
ish a TRIWEEKLY (REALLY triweekly, you know, once every three weeks?) zine 

gave .lust been. Plnch-hittmng publishing Diplomacy Review ( IDA zine —2 50 
^PlfciiHfc nolfci oftaC S60tt nas since essentially thrown his hat in on the Walk- 

cr side of the feud; issue 19/20 of The Pocket Armenian, Scott's zine, de- 
nounced TDA and John Beshara. 



11 

copies, pages), am working on an Anniversary issue of my zine 
(3§ pages,) and am working on an IDA -Handbook (60 pages, elite.) 
Besides this, I am in eight Postal Diplomacy games, go to cons, 
play in Dungeons & Dragons campaigns ( ( and now co-gamesmasters 
one)) GM 4 Diplomacy games ((now somewhat more)) and also occa- 
sionally go to school a little, or go ton work when the mood hits 
me. Who has time to write a dumb Diplomacy' column? I'm too busy 
publishing two Dip zines and a Diplomacy book. 

((This is an editorial insetted comment, the kind that everyone hates so 
much. I believe Gerard was commenting on the lack of fan activity in New 
York. It is true; aside from a small group centered around playtesting 
at SPI, wargaming fandom is essentially dead in New York; aside from cons, 
like Lunacon, put on by some real old-timers, sf fandom is nearly non- _ 
existant in New York city. ST fandom has some life, but only because of 
the New York ST club. Only Diplomacy shows any real signs of viabilityt 
and Diplomacy is a very small hobby.)) 

Another thing, Gerard— all the manifold possibilities with multiple paren- 
thesis hav e been hashed out over &nd over in Diplomacy press aeries. 

As to Houarner 1 s comments on the Mimeo Mythos Society, what shall we do, 
Greg'? I suggest immediate induction into the DAMNED ORDER OF THE PROTEC_ 
TORS OF THE BLACK FLAME OF OFFSETISM, OR REASONABLE FACSIMILE THEREOF, 
THEREFORE AND THERETOFORE SO WHAT. That would be an appropriate punishment 
Good,, as you pointed out, does' not mean High Quality — it means Not 
Evilllll . I will be sure to send Gerard a copy of Green Eft gs and Ham #1 
with green-eggs-and-ham stained all over it, so he can be even more nausea* 

The Exponent is not a good zine, whatever dud says. 

The Pocket Armenian (f Scott's zine)) has hardly had a dearth of articles 
lately J I'm overflowing. We've had a dearth of SPACE for articles — 
but we have had a lot of poetry .. • 

Ah! More Houarner stuff to dud out! His assessment of .Monty Python and the 
Holy Grail is sad. Anyone who thinks that movie was gory — or "grim" is 
pathetically moronic—or has a slight problem. THE GODDAMN BLOOD LOOKS LIKE 
a 1/5 solution OF HEINZ KETCHUP i The extremectories (ARMS' AND LEGS CUT OFF) 
were dpne.so nefe&ly that — well, you get the idea. Houarner states that "th- 
ere is such a fantastic mixture of absurdity with' reality that one tends to 
forget the brutality and just laugh. Horseshit. There is no brutatlity. 

And the ending wasperfect. Gerard obviously has no minute perception of the 
basics of the British absurdity school of humor — of which MP is the latest 
graduate — if he thinks that this most appropriate ending "sucks." MP does 
not merely explode ntyhs (as other humorists of the past have done) — it tak- 
es myth-busting for granted and jumps ..off from there into the quagmire of 
absurdity and inappropriety (or somesuch.) Gerard does not adequately ex- 
plain the ending. ' Arthur, after finally fid&ing the Grail, discovers that 
it is guarded by Frenchmen who heap abus (literally — from above, verbally 
and physically); he returns to the shore and calls from an army (which 
those who watched carefully enough saw contained not only medievally-armed 
soldiers, but also what appeared to be Viet Cong members and sanitation 
men.) The most heroic music is playing, the battle is being called to de- 
fend the honor of the King, when — Throughtout the movie (after a short 
scene in which Arthur & co stab to death aprofessor delivering a lecture) 
the dead professor is being follwed in short 15 second snatches — from his 
wifes discovery of his murder, to the investigation by the police, anei so 
forth. 



12 

In the end, the bobbies? catch up. ^ind its not just "one of the cops puts 
his hand on a comaera lens"*; The bobbies ride on in their sound trucks add 
paddy f v'On'«, the orofesno ^ife leads them to Arthur saying "That's him 2 
He's the one!" Arthur is escorted, bewildered and unceremoniously, into 
a paddy wagon, along with several other knights. 

Then, one of the policemen casually reaches his hand out torwards the scr- 
een, and breaks no "a earner lens" — th elns of the movie camera that's 
filming the movie i Thus you see this hand reaching out, getting bigger 
and bigger, then squahhing and splintering the picture. 

I don't understand Houarner; this seemed to me to be the culmination of 
everything' MP has ever done. Dud. 

As the THE FEMALE MAN and other oxymorons, your comments are, or course, 
perfectly correct. All I disagree with is your statement that it's . in- 
evitable that society not lock k of its work pool out of work. Society 
CAN introduce females to the labor pool without making them equal — look 
at the antebellum South. (No massa Jokes, please.) Not that. this is 
happening, but your statement is false. Huh? I mena that women's equality 
is not inevitable because of your above statement — its inevitable for oth- 
er reasons that 1 won't go into. 

You neglected to mention in your wargaming column that Sand's subscription 
Barnes shat . ( (True . ) ) 

Metagaming Concepts is one of the lesser of the duldtiish wargame companies 
--more, maj.or. ..ones are Conflict Games (how could, you miss those) ((I pur- 
posefully left them out because GDW now owns them)), and there must be some 
others but I can't remember them right now. 

Prom your explanation, SORCEROR sounds like its, as much of a dud as.. STAR 
F03CE . Why? You mentioned that Simon sen designed it. That's enough. 

The man is INCOMPETENT. 

I think all your columns are necessary, and you should add a D&D column ' 
and a film column, and a music column, and' a SEAL fantasy column (let 

Houarner be your film columnist-) and, no yes an sf column. (I know its 

unthinkable for an sf zine to have an sf column, but think about it.) 

Gee, now that you ask — sure, I'd be interested in becoming your Diplomacy 
coluYnnisti 1 Why didn't you ask before? 

And finally, Greg, GINNUNGAetc is spelled GINNUNGANUNGA an3 sox forth, 
not with an I. 

((The letter is signed "Arioch, Lord of Chaos".)) 

(Rick Loomis, PO Box 1^67, Scottsdale, AZ, 85252) 

Xist .ffomfoshed the rest of your zine, and have some more comments to make, 
so will send you a letter insted of just a postcard.. 

Regards to your wargaming column: What do you mean "these three companies 
are the most active ones?" l) We are constantly running games, selling 
games, and producing mew games. 2) We are not undergoing bankruptcy pro- 
ceedings. 3) You must know about us, you send us your magazine. k) How 
can you forget about us? (See #3 above.) 5) We have a very large circulate 
ion.' We publisht-the following games; STARLORD, IMPERIALISM, BATTLE OF 
CHIC KAMAUGA , NUCLEAR DESTRUCTION, plus we have approximately 800 current 



13 

players in our pbm ((play-by-mail)) system. We have three magazines 
with a combined circulation of about 700 subscribers. But you did 
not mention Plying Buffalo Inc as one of the smaller game companies. 
You also did not mention us' as one of the bigger game companies. 
Surely we must fit in there somewhere. 

((All true, I'm, sorry I neglected to mention your. STARLORD should 
be reviewed somewhere this issue. Let me rectify my error; 

((Flying Buffalo Inc is a moderate sized company which specializes 
'in moderating computer games by mail. They run Nuclear Destruction, 
which is a simulation (well, a game about, anyway) of World War III; 
Battle Plan, which is somewhat more complicated, and is about WWII 
type warfare; Raumkrieg, which is ship-to-ship space warfare ; and 
several other games, none of which are as popular as the above three. 
In addition, they print three magazines, two of which I believe I've 
mentioned in previous issues; The Flying Buffalo's Favorite Magazines, 
a zine about FBI's computer games; Warfeamer's Information, a wargaming 

newszine; and damn, can't' remember the name of the third. Anyway, 

it's Lew Pulsipher's (I believe) old science fiction wargaming zine, ' 
which he gave to FBE. What is it called? I've never actually gotten 
an issue , although I've seen copies of it aroudd . Nova? Something 
like that. 

((As well, FBI prints a number of wargames, most of them quite simple, 
and all quite interesting. -You can contact them through the address 
I gave at the beginning of Rick's letter.)) : 

( (An other letter from Rick;)) 

Another letter. I note the letter from William Bliss asking about the 
circular stickers sometimes found on his mail. Would you please tell him 
and your other readers that they have nothing to do with subversives lists 
or anything that complicated. They areraerely for routing of mail. The 
"3" ne^n^ that this atack~of letters (which your letter is on top ,of ) 
all go to the same first three numbers on the Zip code. ■ The sticker 
goes on the top letter of the stack, whic is why you only get them sometimes 
The "C" means all for the same city. The "S" means all fr>r the same 
state . Simple . < 

(( Gawd. Must you take the romance out of everything ?)) 

Speaking of subversives lists. ((Which reminds me — I forgot to pub 
double' parenthesis at the beginning of the . paragraph . Bote that thi is 
now Ye Ed wpeakin?;* ) ) I ^amesmaster (or .used to gamesmaster) two „ - 
Diplomacy games in The Pocket Armenian, Scott Rosenberg's zine. Adam Gilin- 
sky, noted Star Trek dealer ((if you've been fleeced buying "Vulcan Crys- 
tals" Somewhere at an East Coast convention, chances are he's the fleecer)) 
is in one of- them. While on a French Carribbean island, he sent me a tele- 
gram with hi-s -moves, in standard Diplomacy abbreviations . (For instance, 
Army Piedmont to. Marseilles would be A Pie-Mar.) I got a call from Western 
Union, who told me that they had a telegram from "some foreign European 
country in a language I can't even pronounce." I had not idea it was Dip 
moves-, so I told them to .mail it to me. 

In any case, it turns out that Gilinsky had it transmitted "in code — " 

that is, since it wasn't written in an understandable language, he had to \ 

pay extra to have it transmitted. And there's something or other about 

the Mailgram service not accepting coded messages. So I never got his move; 



14 

Anyway, I now think I'm "being watched by the CIA. Or FBI, or whatever. 
After all, I'm of Armenian extraction, and everyone knows Armenia is a 
member state of the USSR. And I once visited Russia (trtue, when I was 7- 

— ) And I recieved a message from a European country in fact, from a 

Carribean island that was formerly French that had just had a revolution 
{(A revolution of conneryates, but I don't suppose the FBI actually thinks)) 
in code, I'm obviously a Roosian spysi after all. And I keep on getting 
these strange letters. from people, like "Army Trebizond-Khazars, " and "Leon 
and Castile Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy, " and "Burgundy is a supply cen- 
ter, Tyrolia is an ocean, Greece and North Africa split in half, North Sea 
is Black Holed." Obviously more code. 

(Don D'Amraassa, 19 Angell Drive, East Providence, RI, 0291*1) 
Some Quick notes. 

Gina Peterson obviously doesn't know what she's talking about, and never 
reviewed THE FEMAE MAN, so I don't know why you bothered to include her 
bit of incoherent raving. It is precisely people '-like her that will ulti- 
mately defaat the ERA. Sfte demonstrates a thoroughgoing insistance that 
Men are Bad, and Women are Good. Certainly, men oppress women, just as 
women oppress men, and the stricture of society oppress both. Little 
diatribes with no content such as hers undoubtedly make her feel better, 
and liberated, but all it shows to the rest of us is that she is insecure 
in her own liberation, and needs to constantly demonstrate her aggressive 
independence, becaus In fact it cloaks guilt about her non-conf ormiiiy and 
fear that she is not capabel of living up to the principals she espouses, 
Gina is not part of the solutions she Is part of the problem. 

Robert Zscilan is equally shortsighted. There are sections of THE FEMALE 
MAN that are obviously tongue and cheek.. As stereotyped as the male char- 
acters are, they are no more so. than are the female characters in any num- 
ber of other books. Russ pokes a great deal of fun at us all along the 
way, with a great deal of success. I suspect the book is dated, ultimate- 
ly, and a failure, ultimately, because it is just as unrealistic as its 
opposite extreme. But the fact fchmains that it is an interesting book, 
and that should not be dismissed so cavalierly and with such utter lack of 
comprehension. Robert's characterisation of the sexes is so repulsive and 
rediculous that I see no need to bother responding to it. 

I accree'with most of what you yourself said, Greg, except that I don't 
see the inevitability of equality. On the contrary, I expect a return to 
the Dark ages type mentality, because I expect a wrenching' world crisis 
in the next "two decades, the eclipse of the West (which to me includes the 
Soviet Union, the eruption of wars of starvation, major ecological damage 
and possible nuclear war. I'm very optimistic. 

((You present one of the many possibilities open to us. Let me present 

another; a resurgense of colonialism, with the great powers the Soviet 

Union, the United States, France, West Germany, Japan, Iran, Indonesia — 
grabbing the most valuable of the resource-producing areas of the world. 
The first step may well be an American -NATO invasion of the Persian Gulf. 
Followed by a "triage;" an isolation of the hopeless areas of the world — 
South America, China, India, parts of Africa, perhaps all of Europe and 
Asia. A development of a space-going technology by the industrialized 
nations as the rest of the world collapses into starving neolithic misery. 
Development of alternate sources of energy (sun-power, fusion, etc) and 
the ' development of alternate sources of raw materiels (Moon for light . 
metals, Mars for heavy metals.) , And, once the huge population has starved 
to death in the Isolated areas, perhaps a re-colonization and re-industr- 
ialization of the world. A prospect which I find much more appealing; 



15 

After all, I will be living "through the better part of the next 100 years 
Or not living, as the case may be, 

'Rebecaa Baggett, 8008 Old Stage fid, Raleigh, NC 1 ," 27603) 

As should be fairly obvious by know, I'm not going to make the next dead- 
line, I apologize for that, but even more for not being polite enough to 
admit months ago that I probably am not going to make any of them. I've 
found my abilities as a columnist strictly limited; I've tried to do a fex 
since "The Alien Principle," but haven't been able to get any stirring — 
or even mildly interesting--ideas . Whether this is because I'm dealing 
with seven-year-old materiel that's been analyzed, re-analyzed, and re-re- 
analyzed, or if it's just a personal quirk, 'I don't know. 

I'sre had to cancel ( the third issue of SOL III as well, because of lack o; 

lack of time/and the realization that I can't keep it up alone, I 
almost i?an myself ragged with the last issue,, and from what I've seen of 
other people's senior years, I'd lose my mind trying to handle school, 
the zine, and writing me own. ((*)) It isn't just you I've been neglectii 
I've been holding materiel here far too long, and that isn't fair to my 
contributors, so I'm stopping it cold. 

I'm really sorry about the column. It's a good: idea, I think", when all 
your columnists are interested; if I were you though, I'd throw open 
your requests to anything and everything, so you don't have to rely upon 
them. I've noticed I'm not the ' only one with iate or non-existant columm 
A film column sounds feice; the zine review column is a definite asset to 
any zine (if only because the editor can get freebies that way) (tor who- 
ever is doing the reviewing))) and book reviews would be fun, if you ever 
get any (I except the so-called review of THE FEMALE MAN; more later), 
and if they're not too long. What I really like -in a review is a one- 
paragraph, concise. sort of thing, that gives me some of the plot and the 
reviewer's opinion — the LOCUS quickies are what I mean. Of course, you 
have to trust your reviewer enough to believe him/her if he/she tells 
you a book is grade-A shit. Or you can get the book and see. 

As for Gina Peterson and Robert Zscilan, what can -I say? Actually, I've 

said quite a bit in a three-page rant I wrote recently, but as most of 
it is personal comments on Zscilan 1 s doubtful ; manhood and obvious paranoid 
hatred of womankind, I may have 'to censormyself before I send it in. I'd 
hate to come off sounding as violent as he does, even if I would have the 
excuse of my gripes being directed torwards one man, while his apparently 
are directed torwards Women, period, full stop. His was the sort of artic 
le which make me pray I never meet the author, because I don't believe in 
cold-blooded murder, (Don't you dare print any of thisr I hope he's, not 
a good friend of yours.) ((Sorry. See below.)) , 

Editor here. Sorry for printing your paragraph when you specifically 
asked me not too; it doesn't really matter. Robert Zscilan and Gina 
Peterson are both figments of John Liberman's imaginations He wanted to 
do a book from two different persons point of view, and I suggested THE 
FEMALE MAN. He agreed that it was a good book, and I thought the reviews 
would make for a nice bit of controversy. By the amount of materiel 
they've generated, one can see that I was right. 

Anyway, I'm sorry for playing a scabrous trick like this on my readers, 
but it was fun™ I suggest all and sundry will take note of my April issue 
with extreme care. And take it with a grain of salt perhaps. 



16 

Ha. Ha t ha* Ha. No time for school? Good lord, I print a 36 page zine 
once every three months (or tow months, supposedly), a l£ page zine once 
every three weeks, a newsletter about once a month, and various other 
things every now and then — including an irregular 36-page fantasy warga- 
ming fanzine. 1 , . 

As well, I am currently in 6 postal games of normal Diplomacy and k var- 
iant games, as well as a postal space wargame, This last takes me about 
10 hours to do one set of orders, and has rules amounting to some 15? 
pages. I garaesmaster two Diplomacy games and a by-mail multi-player 
wargame. I' work about 15 hours a week at SPI. I playtest for two gaming 
companies. Occasionally I write a little fiction. 

Hell, I'm supposed to do all that, and go to school too? Good lord.,.. 
I think I'll write, a letter to my congressman asking him to get Cong- 
ress to extend the day to 36 hours. 

Your ideas about columns are worthwhile-— the problem is that, with my 
limited readership, almost everyone who can contribute is. I will annonce 
here and now that anyone who feels competent to write. a Wargaming, 
Diplomacy of Film column would be welcome. If he really is competent, 
that is. 

I'm thinking of introducing a "Weird" column, that would, essentiallyy 
l?e on a different subject each issue. Butterfly hunting, Marijiiana grow- 
ing for Fun and Profit, and the Etiquette of Becoming the New Messiah 
are excellent topics. ■ ~ 



(Dave Kadlecek, 1^4? Sierra Creek Way, San Jose, CA, 95132) 

Rod Walker's comment that he hopes the IDA will turn into sort of an Am- 
erican NGC ((National Games Club — a British organization)) is rather dis- 
turbing. As I understand it, the NGC on one hand, and the IDA/UK and 
independents on the other do not get along well at all, mainly because 
the NGC has so much power and is dominated by a single person. I, for 
one,' would not like to see the IDA or any other og£anization in the same 
position here that the NGC is i*n Britain. It appears that Edi Birsan 
' also wants to take a step in that direction with his NEP proposal. By 
the way, Rod Walker is wrong in saying that VERITAS VINCIT completely 
documented the fact that the orignial purpose of TDA was to* destroy PDC* 
what W did document was that Beshara and the founders of the DA lefi 
people to. believe that the DA would be a democratic organization, but 
instead it was a dictatorship of John Beshara and was used by Beshara in 
his own feuds. That the DA's purpose was to destroy the PDC was alleged 
in the followup of reactions. Incidentally, the original proposals in 
VV were for reform of the DA, and only later was a separate organization 
proposed. 

In the computer column, John mentions that HP may be coming out with a 
full size computer. Well* they are, and the University of Santa Clara 
(which I attend) is using it to replace their 36©. (Unfortunately, like 
the 360, it will not be available for gneral use; for that we have just 
an HP 2100.) I've heard that ours is just a prototye, though (USC is 
less than 10 miles from HP's factory,) and alsothat the new computer is 
supposed to save our sociology department from reliance on some monster 
. system at Stanford (pride, y'know.) 

You made a mistake in your review of Sorcerer; according to the latest 
S&T, it will be '49, not $8 when it's published. One the subject of STAR 
FORCE, I thought the "Future History" was more of a loser than the game 
was * • • 



17 



(Chester D. Cuthbert, 1104 Mulvey Av, Winnipeg. Manitoba, Canada, R3M US) 
Thank you for sending me GIGO #3. 

I have filled out your questionnaire, and you will find it enclosed, Many 
of your interests as reflected in the fanzine differ from mine, but this 
is not so strange, as I am 62 years old. 

Of the fanzines reviewed, I have received only UNIVERSE SF REVIEW. Keith 
Justice writes very well, and makes his reviews interesting^ but I have 
told him that there are other review fanzines which provide a greater num- 
ber, and that I think he might be well advised to Join his efforts to 
theirs, rather thafa issue as a separate fanzine his views at his own great 
expense. I am ,1ust waiting to see if he issues his first commercially 
distributed issue, and of course I wish him well. 

The two reviews of THE FEMALE MAN are accompanied by too mr.ny words devo- 
ted to personal criticism of the respective revi ewers f but otherwise I 
enjoyed reading much of the materiel you presented., 

I congratulate you on your sense of humor. It enlivens any publication to 
have a lighter side „ 

A lot of work goes into the production of a fanzine like yours, and I 
hope that the response will encourage you to continue publishing,, It is 
all good practice; and as you can see from my typing mistakes ((What 
typing mistakes?)) as little wouldn't do me any harm 0 
##########^^^ 

DIPCON; COLIATINGCON; A NEW YORK WARGAMING CON? 

I'm a member of the Dipcon Committee of the IDA— a non-voting member, rathe 
The" committee is presently d&veloping a set of gnidl&nes for the "DipConi" 
the North American Postal Diplomacy Convention » Until the present, the 
"Dipcon" has been held at various places in the country- — for the past 

three or fourx years- in Chigago wherever someone was willing to hold 

it. In the recent past, it has been part of a larger wargaming convention. 

Gordon Anderson-, who has held the DIpCon for? the past (what? three) 

years, has announced that his company, Viking Systems r has Trademarked 
the name "DipCon." 

And the DipCon committee has decided that it is the fact that the DipCon 
is the national, annual gathering of postal Diplomacy players that makes 

it what it is and that Anderson can keep the name DIpCon if he likes. 

The IDA will assign whatever convention it likes to be the convention 

at which the IDA General Meeting is held and it is the General Meeting 

more than anything else which characterizes the Postal Diplomacy Convention 

In any case, the DipCon comm (which will probably change its name to 
something like the IDA National Diplomacy Conversion Committee) is 
establishing a system fro regional rotation of the NrD 0 C site vaguely 
remincent of the Worldcon system. The two regions openxst? for the 
DipCon site next year are Western (or Pacific) and Atlantic. 

Origins II- supposedly, at least, the World Wargnming Convention^ has 
announced to the president of the IDA, Edi Birsan, that it wishes to be 



18 

the IDA General Meeting site. Edi Birsan has told me, informally, that 
he supports the Baltimore site ((which is where Origins will be held)), 
and that he will make no effort to organize a New York bid. 

Edi would be the prime mover in any DipCon solo bid in Hew Yorki that is 
to say, he would be the prime mover for a DipCon in New York that would 
not be Inconjunction with a wargaming convention. 

Gordon Anderson has recently phoned both Robert Lipton (publisher of 
t% THE MIXUMAXU GAZZETTE) and Adam Gilinsky (Vulcan Crystal dealer and 
not-so-noted wargaming, Diplomacy, sf and Star Trkfe fan f who has had some 
experience in conventions) to ask if they would wish to make a bid for 
the IDA General Meeting site in New York, using the name DipCon as trade- 
marked by Viking Systems Inc. Anderson cannot himself organize a bid, 
of course, as he is based in Chicago, and the Central region may not bid 
for next year's DipCon. 

If my Information is correct, Robert Upton refused, and Adam Gilinsky 
was noncommittal. Adam is not very involved in Dip politics, and thus 
is unaware that and why Anderson is looked on as a pariah by many 
members of the hobby and a great many people in New York. 

ThiRp at the moment, looks to be the only bids for the DipCon. 



I am utterly opposed to Anderson's bid In New York. God knows, if we 
want to hold the DipCon in New York, we don't need Anderson's i seal of 
approval— — and it is my opinion that Anderson's stamp would hurt a 
New York convention more than it would held It. 

And I am opposed to holding the DipCon at Origins. Origins was* in my 
opinion, a badly run, badly thought-out convention. I have seen con 
reports to the effect that It was the most fantastic wargaming con 
$o h&t the scene since the Dawn of Man. If so, I don't thik a hell of 
a lot of wargaming conventions. 

Thus, I would not want the DipCon associated with such a travesty. And, 
as well;, any DipCon held at Origins would be swept with non-postal players. 
This might not be a bad thing for IDA, as it would get a lot of free 
publisity, but 9 it would certainly decreaee enjoyment of the convention 
by postal players. To give an example, I played in the Dip tournament 
at Origins? and did not enjoy myself- my fellow players wire all face- 
to-face people P most of them Inexperienced. I would like tha think that 
I played reasonably well — -but I did miserably because the other players 
were playing miserably, and thus stabbed me at the wrong time (which us- 
ually hurt them more than me, but still did me In) or some such. 

Anyway, Baltimore's a long way to go. (AHA! Now the real reason comes 
outB » No, not really 1 intend to go to Origins whether or not Dip- 
Con Is held there.) 

-Anyway;, finally getting to the point, I intend to organize a New York 
bid* or at least be part of one. If Adam Gilinsky organizes. an Anferson 

bid* I shall organize one in direct competition and If that means that 

hx Baltimore takes it 5 so be it. And if Adam organizes an independent 
bid, separate from Anderson, I would be honored to take part, and maybe 
even contribute a bit of my hard-earned ' cash . 



Oh-, damn* I shouldn't have written the above thing. That means I'm going 
to* have to send freebies to Anderson and Gilinsky and Edi and IGB and 



19 



Please note, that, in the above editorial, the word "DipCon," is occasion- 
ally used to describe the North American Diplomacy Convention. I recog- 
nize that Viking Systems Inc has filed a trademark on the name DipCont I 

( . am In error when I use that word to describe a phonomenon, rather than 
a specific s convention held by Viking Systems. I believe Viking System's 
act in tracLemarking the : name "DipCon" is, in the words of Edi Birsan, 

... despicable. However, I believe I understand Viking System's reasons for 
doing so.. I believe, however, that Viking System, no matter what its re- 
asons, acted in a wrong-headed manner, and has helped to destroy an hobby 
instfttuition with no regard for anything other than Viking System's finan- 
cial well-being. 

Forgive me for "the use » of the word "DipCon j" in most leases, if the phrase 
"North American Diplomacy Convention" is inserted instead, the meaning 
is clear. - ' 



I have some reservations when • I print this; it may be that I am wrongfully 
maligning Adam ,Gillnsky, and misstating his position. " I hope that I am 
not, and I hope that he will correct me If I am. 



THE "OVERKILL" GEN HE* 



Charles Jacques 

Economic instability seems to bring out the worst in people. They love to 

watch other pepple suffering dieing. Perhaps it is just that misery 

loves mompany. Whto knows? Anyway, as of late, two big trends have dev- 
eloped in the escapism industry. Ever since our country ' (nay, the world) 
has plunged into the Recession, Disaster mov&es and Post-Nuclear War comics 
have become big, big, .big* Since the disaster movies have been talked to 
death, and I'm not being paid to do a column on movies, I '1,1 get right 
to the disaster comics. 

, , i*' ' * * 

November 1972 and D.C. brought out the first 'Overkill' comic. (For the 
culturally. illiterates ((?))( an overkill- comic means a 'comic dealing wifa 
Post-Nuclear -disaster times, "Ov&rkill" being part of the US Government 
lile, "OPERATION OVERKILL, » dealing with the possibility, of nuclear war. ) 
A Jack Kirby comic creation called- -"Karaandi , (The Last Boy on Earth. ) The 
Comic had a fascinating premise — a boy emerges from an ancient underground 
bunker after "The Great Disaster," a still unexplained incident during 
which a nuclear disaster, took place. {Disaster, you must notice. Kirby 
never implies it was a nuclear war.) ' (Optimist.) ((It's being an optimist 
to think that the human race was destroyed- by something other than a 
nuclear war? ) ) The boy emerges into a world similar to that portrayed in 
the movie "Planet of the Apes." The difference is that, in Kamadi's world, 

it isn't only apes who talk. It's snakes and lions and pumas and well, 

you get the idea. (The only things that don't talk are Men, horses, birds 
and Humans.) As is the recurring form in all Kirby comics, "Kamandi" is 

a saga one which the reader is best off reading each and every issue. 

Of course, anyone Interested in KAMANDI need not fret over missing the fi- 
rst 35 or so issues that have elapsed so far. Every 6 or 7 issues a new 
story-line develops, so a reader, if persistant, can pick up on the 
concept quite quickly. 



20 



Of course, the reader will be confused for awhile. It will take you awhile 
to understand the Marvelous CORTEXIN ((I thought this was in D.C.? Okay, 
I'm sorry, I'm sorry already, stop throwing those rocksi I'll stop with 
the parenthetical remarks!)) Dr. Canus, Great Caesar, Canus, Ben Boxer, 
Renzi, Steve, and the many other varied and interesting people, places and 
things of Kamandi's world. Hang in there, however;, it is well worth the 
effort t> understand the series. 

True to the "Planet of the' Apes" tradition, the "Animals" are 'masters and 
the ''humans" are the slaves, slaves which the animal -world and economy 
(fresh out of chaos) need desparately now. As soon as the crisis is over, 

■however, a majority of the Masters are going to be frying awfully hard to 
exterminate the human race. Kamandi realizes this, and is trying to get 
the tattered remains of his species together to Bally against the animals — 
to get their planet back. His struggle seems destined to fail, however, 
since there are very precious few humans left with anything approaching 

-intelligence . 

But Kamandi and Kirby persist. No matter how many times Kamandi fails 
in his valiant efforts to save our worthless race, he. springs back for 
more. Apparently his readers are just as persistent. "Kamandi*" #1" had 

■ : a print run of l&7r000 copies' (Average run for a new magazine.) It was 
sold out within a week* of selling. An additional 350, 00.0-copies of #1 
were printe d up before #2 came out. #2_had- a print run of 500,000 copies, 
and they too sold out, U| until issue #15, KAMANDI was the best-selling 
comic in the ..wo:p1&.~- After #15 its sales drooped a little, but KAMANDI 

-Ls- -still "going strong-— -one of "the top ten best selling.. comics' in the 
wordl. ... - - 

The KAMANDI saga-is really unique among comic stories. You see anything 
..fr.&m -travelling roots to undersea dolphin cities to a. Gorilla clan dedic- 
ated to preserving the Superman legend, . .something ijuite real In that world. 
Where else can you see anything like this. ... 

(Note to nurse lovers: Before you crrcify Kirby for saying that horses 
are more intelligent than 'a lot of things he gave Intelligence, ('(sic)) 
remember he kept horses dumb for the dramatic affect' of having animals 
ride horseback. is not saying horses are stupid.) 

J"ack Kirby Is partial to three things in his comic creations.. Sagas, int- 
erlocking series, and a third point that I ! ll get to in a moment • i You all 
remember the famous Kirby "Gods' 1 trilogy of course (Consisting of "The New 
Gods," "The Forever People," and "Mister Miracle ,.") Well, it appears 
Kirby is trying to develop still another trilogy '.which so far has only ■ 
budded into a'Suology." This duology consists of "Kamandi" and a newer 
creation,' "Q.M.A.C," (One Man Army Corps)twhich is about a super-powered/ 
orbi'tlng sa'ttelite -powered being who is out to prevent a nuclear war 

from breaking out. In his world, - everyone has nuclear weapons even 

crooks'. Large armies have been outlawed, so compact economy-sized armies 
are needed. Ergo, Q.M.A.C. ' Apparently OMAC failed, as Kirbykeeps insis- 
ting that OMAC and tfAMAiJDI are linked taking place on the same Earth. 

Sb if Kamandi r s radiation-wracked world exists, OMAC faliled. 

However, the .fact he -is a failure notwithstanding, OMAC is every bit as 
good 'as KAMANDI. The Kirby artwork is there (Gbd, I swear his drawings 
deserve to hang in the Metropolitan Museum of 'i^rt.)' the continuing saga 



21 



1 



The fantastic scripting if? still there. *An<^ so are the secret societies. 



The secret societies are the third recurring point of Ktrby epics. In 
every creation secret groups are in existance. In Kamandi, one has numer- 
ous sects, groups and fanatics. In OMAC, one has a sponsering regular grou] 
called the Globabl Peace Agency (GPA) which created OMAC and helped him to 
accept his new life. Now, OMAC helps them non-violently (more or less) 
fight for peace. The GPA is, I think, Kirby ! s ultimate group — It pushes 
secrecy to the brink. They cover their bodies with a cosmetic spray so it 
appears they represent all nationalities. Personally, I think they are a 
re-vision of the KKK, out to get warmongers and conquest freaks (me!), 
and instead of using bedsheets, they use spray. 

Next we look at "Planet of Vampires." The scenario goes something like 
this i 5 astronauts are sent on a mission to explore Mars and its moons. 
They ( make the five year trip across the gulf of space only to find they 
have to return to Earth immediately. A nuclear/biological war has broken 
out, and Earth is in big trouble. Making the five year return trip, they 
find the Earth in shambles. In the five plus years, since the war, all of 
Earth's survivors have been devided into two classes. One class is suppo- 
sedly dedicated to the preservation of civilization on Earth. The groups 
live in pre-constructed comes all, over the world. Under these domes, actual 
cities thrive. These cities are virtual t luxuary apartments. Nobody in the 
present world could ask for more. There' is one disadvantage to living in t 
the dome, however. Inhabitants of the dome have lived in fresh, conditioned 
air for five years while the outside world was forced to live with nolo-* 
caust spawned diseases. Now it is impossible for the "Domies" to go out- 
side for any great length of time without getting a terminal disease. 

The second class of citizens are supposedly savage, s. However, they are 
badly needed by the "Domies." You see, after 5 years of giving in the open, 
they have developed totai immunity to any disease. Those that survived, 
that is. Now* the "Domies" hunt them down like savages, taking them into 
their domes and sucking them dry of blood, which they then use to make a 
serum ; for their peple.,.,so they too may become invulnerable to the ravages 
of a war-swept world. 

The only thing that prevents the domies from total slaughter and world-wide 
, siphoning of savages tos limited facilities, and the counter-attacks of the 
warrior feroups of "Street Gangs," that people have sunk to for survival, 

After splashdown, the astronauts are rescued by the "Domies'* and well re© 
cleved. Then something hideous happens— -the 'astronauts 'see the siphoning 
of a savage. They are appaled, and destroy the plant and free the captive 
slaves, the men and womane break for freedom. ■ Outside the dome, the S* 
astronauts (1 died a little after Touchdown) join one of the street gangs, 
and begin rallying the savages against the Domies. 

Now, the chairman of the local dome ison't too crazy about this idea." He 
orders the Astronauts hunted down. He wants the males dead, their blood 

to be iused as uncontamlnfeted serum. The women he wants alive for breeding 

stock. He wants to start of a race 'of half-breeds who aren f t dependent 
on the anti-body serum. He then sends out a small fleet of hovercraft 
to hunt the instigating astronauts down. From there, I tell you no more* 
Buy the next issue and pick up on the .story* 



22 

Prom a personal point of view, "POV" fed pretty good. It runs a close third 
behind KAMANDI andOMAC. If these comics were done by anyone but Kirby, it 
would be an easy first. "POV" is, extremely well done 0 . . .almost as well do- 
ne as Marvel comics are. But that isn't surprising, since the same guy 
that ' started Marvel started Atlas. 

"POV" has potential, and is definately worth baking a look at. As I said, 
It resembles a Mavel comic almost to a "t." It has the developing sub- 
plots and strung out stories. Yes. If "POV" is canned at all, it will 
be one ( hell of a surprise. 

Enough with vague personal praises. Lets move on to !: Migt$j Samson". Gold 
Key had one" of the first Overkill comics, if not the first. The comic is 
"Mighty Samson," and it deal's with a herculean mutant with an yey patch 
over his right eye, his very feminine girl friend, and her "scientist" 

father, ((Gawd sounds like a space opera trio.)) A trio which is roaming 

around the ruins of N'yark (New York) at-least one,. 'perhaps more, generat- 
ions after the Big. One .. L , In . their travels, they fight savages, mutatns, and 
some very interesting creatures. 

Mighty Samson is quite good, considering that it is a Gold Key* comics, 
which immediately, means that it is keyed to a slightly lower intelligence 
level. This, attitude of Gold Key's^rthat all comic fans are immature is 
changing slowly, thankfully.. But for. the moment, it lacks. Anyway, 'the 
basic premise is that this wandering trio finds a new "Culture" each issues. 
You see, prior to the nuclear war, New York grew to enormous proportions. 
Almost beyond belief. * Now, the Begaten sruvivors who live in the subway 
tunnels, factories, buildings, etc adapt to their culture and surroundings. 
For instance, survivors who lasted the war o ( ut in a police station would 
more than likely become Police Staters mit to bring law and order to the 
world in ruins. Get my drift? 

(Did I say New York was enormous? It must have grown to the size of Rhode 
Island. In 30 or ^0 odd issues, our ; adventurous trio never crosses into 
New HerseyE )## 

"Mighty Samson," however has its faults. All these comics do. But I'll get 
to that later. ' ' 

The next comic we find is a Charlton Comic. It is entitled "Doomsday Plus 
One", and deals with the adventures of three astronauts and a f thawed -out 
caveman in the Post -Nuke -war days. Temporarily, however, our heroes aren't 
too adventurous. They are mainly hanging around a dererted Canadian Air 
Force base, staving off the attacks of a Communist cyborg who survived the 
war also. "Doomsday" Is fairlyVnew, so I can't say much about' it, I do 
reccomend you pick up a copy, as it is very good. 



*New York is, at the moment, approximately 3$5 square miles. 

**I don't know about that. Yousay New York has grown immmnsly well, 

Boswash is pretty big. 

In any case, who would want to cross over into New HJersey??? 



We come to our final Overkill comic 1 -* Iron jaw. Wait a minute* somebody 
out there is screaming, I RON JAW is a Sword & Sorcery/Barbaric adventure 
comic. Half true. While ton the surface it is an S&S/BA comics* if you 
look closely at IRONJAW, you see it indeed is an Overkill Survival Comic. 
What is the most prominent feature of IRONJAW 's world? ,The-Great-Crater- 
Where-Nothing-Grows. What are the two most powerful bands on this Earth 
of the future? The Robber bands (Query; since POV and IRONJAW are both 
put out by Atlas, could the Robber Bands be descendants of POV's Street 
Gangs?) and the MUTANT mountain people. What is the chief religion of 
this mixed world? Worship of the Great Machine (aka a gimmifekedeup wash- 
ing machine that somehow survived the great war.) I can go on and on- . 
But I'm sure you get the general idea* ' - : 

•Okay, earlier on I mentioned T that all these Overkill comics had basic flaw; 
The biggest offenders are KAMANDI, DOOMSDAY PLUS ONE, Mf&ffiffiTY SAMSON and 
PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES. All these comics show something surviving. 
Kamandl shows thousands of cities still standing, in ruins, but still 
standing nonetheless. DOOMSDAY" Shows military' bases unharmed, MIGHTY 
SAMSON shows New "York in perfect running condition ((Impossible. New 
York has never been in perfect running o onditi on. )) PLANET OP THE VAMP- 
IRES shows cities in still living and manageable -condition . This is all-" 
quite impossible. A nuclear war and/or disaster 'would completely level 
the earth, turning all but maybe 1% into level ground. That other 1% 
would be in ruins, and would contain less than 1 million ^survivors. Nuc* 
lear we pons are controlled by automatic equipment. Once a country starts 
firing off its arsenal, everything -goes off. And it would be a long time 
before all the worlds aresenals are depleted. * 

The same comics I mentioned above are the same offenders in the next gripe 
I'm laying on you. In all the above mentioned comics, mankind's survivors 
! are portrayed as high-spirited determined people, wttno are dedicated to 
preserving mankind and saving civilization, and seeing that it never happ- 
ens again. This is about 3 bricks short of -a full load. When a person has 
his planet blown off the o^l^s^lal map, he could care less about the sur- 
vival 'of civilization. It's his survival his interested in. Food, shelter 
and sex are all he's interested in p^Eserving. 

The only comic that really portrays the post-di saster survival in truth 
* '■ is IRONJAW. * It shaows the Earth several generations after the war. 

The* forests, animals and men are $ust starting to come back. ' Civiliza-" 
tion be damned r people are barbarians, interested only in survival. The 
weak just don't make it. And that's the way i-t will be." " 

Of course, if you are an optimist, and/or like to read some really good 
comics, then pick up a copy of all these oomics I've mentioned. All are 
fantastic, even if they are alittle far-fetched. 



* actually, there's a good £exex chance that a large percentage of the 
population would survive a nuclear war. THe nuclear strategy of NATO 
and,," I assume, the Warsaw Pact is to destroy enemy nuclear installations- 
— missile bases, air bases and so on. In any' first strike, it would be 
the weapons installations that would be destroyed, rather. than large 
cities or inconspicuos conntryslde. 

Of course, the defensive strategies of both system of allies calls for 
massive retaliation on cities, farmland etc,. Apparently, it Is hoped 
that the threat of massive retaliation would make it unlikely for a nation 
to make a first strike to begin with. 



enemies* weapons installations so as to make that enemies' retaliation as 
weak as possible, a nation could actually win a nuclear war. If. one calls 
destroying three quarters of one's conquests and some third of one's home 
winnings 

It is true that the nation's arsenals contain enough nuclear weaponry to 

level the world several times over but the fact that there is so much 

weaponry does not meant that the nuclear blasts would be given nicely 
even distribution, so as to level everything, or even that the large major- 
ity of them would be fired. 

In any case, i*t impossible f.or there to be survivors after a nuclear war. 
Of a kind. ' 



VA.RGAME REVIEWS 

STAB.. RAIDER (Attack War gaming Association, 314 Edgley Av, Glenside, PA, 
1 19038, $4to $6.50, depending on the packaging. ) 

STAR RAIDER is a rotten game.' To put it succinctly, it shits. 

The, board is advertised as being reproduced in three brilliant colors 

and' so it is.' From an apparently hand -drawn original. The counters, 
top,, are reproduced from a hand-drawn original. The rules were apparently 
written by the chimpanzee-and-typewriter system. The number of typos, 
grammatical errors,, etc ad nauseum is exactly that. "Prom the explanations 
in /the rules, one is unable to distinguish between black holes and pulsars. 
The rules are badly written and badly organized . . .. They explain nothingg. 
They are incomplete. They are, for the most part, unintelligible. 

Combat is rediculously simple. Roll a die, and one loses half of ones' 
force. . 'A large force of slightly inferior -.ships has no chance against 

one- very large ship more, likely, that one. ship will destroy the entire 

enemy fleet, ship by ship. "•■ 'The s'caTe is rediduloUs-' — ; about 60 "$t'ars . in ' 
an entire "galaxy. The terrain is • rediculous . . , 

I'd- bum the game, except that the plastic envelope it came in would 
stink up the house. And I am loath to destroy a jjj>6 investment, no 
matter how much af a turkey the. game is. So, the game will stay hidden 
under a pile of shit for all eternity. I'll- never play the' thing againm 
thank god. ■ ... 



WAR OF THE WIZARD (Tactical Studies Rules, POB 756, Lake Geneva, WI, 531^7, 

•)7.50) ■ ■ ' ■ . 

WOTW is a tactical sorcerer vs. sorcerer (with variations for priests) g 
game. The rules are a reasonably well-written 30+ page booklet detail- 
ing the basic system, the spells available, and the tables necessary.: 
The board is a "ladder" with 2k steps* 

The game is complicated and fascinating. Over 70 seplls are detailed, 
some usable by sorcerers and ' some by priests, and most by both. Essentially, 
each player sits at one end of the board, and casts spells at the other, 
attempting to drive that players' "spell points" below zero. The first 
player to be successful wins. " 

Essentially, then, the player with the higher number of spell points wins 



25 

most often. Some people I've played claim that the player with the higher 
number of spell points cannot fall to win, and it is true that the higher 
player has an immense advantage, even if the difference in spell points is 
small . 

One solution is to give both players 100 spell points in all three categor 
ies, making is a purely even match. 

The basic system is nice, but some of the combat tables are a little fucke- 
According to the "wall versus creature" 1 aombat table, it is -easier to 
kill an enemy "wall" (Wall of Fire,' Wall of Iron, that sort of thing) 
with a low level monster than with a high' level creature • Insane. 

I Ikke the game, though, and am presently revising, leaving the basic sys- 
tem alone, and changing the 'tables I don't like, and making the spells 
compatible with D&D. I may even expand it to a full, board ,'feame and 
include ■. stuff for different weapon types and so on. , Essentially a game 
for playing out D&D battles on a tactical scale. 

Anyway, getting back to the matter at hand, WOTW is an excellent game. 
Almost worth $ 7.50. 

DUNGEON (Tacti-cal Studies Rules, address above, #12. 50). 

D is an intensly simplified game of D&D. The board depicts .a : standardized- 
dungeon, and tne rules are a little less complicated thai/Chutes and Ladd- 
ers. The players move around ' the board, tl^eir characters represented by 
Milton-Bradley type little plastic' pieces . Each player attempts to kill 
monsters and get treasure, attempting to f ulf ill, ,rather silly "victory 
conditions," using a very simplified combat procedure. 

It's a fast moving fun game, but it'll never be called a classic. I even 
hesitate to call it a war game . It's fun. Not ^12.50 worth of fun, though 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-H'-x-x-xsx-x-x-x-x-x 

A CONVENTIONAL DIRGE 

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x*x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x 

I've read a bunch of reports, mostly in wargaming fanzines, which absolute 
ely raved about Origins I. "World's greatest wargaming convention ever" 
is a f typical remark. *I suppose one can't expect much more from gamers# 
C (Sorry. ) ) , ' 

Origins may have- been the World's Greatest Wargaming Convention Ever. 
I so, : I don't think a hell of a "lot of wargaming cons. Origins was 
my first, s-o I don't really know. - . 

The emphasis was on tournaments. Emphasis, helil there was nothing 

BUT tournaments. A Diplomacy tournament,, and a War In the. East, a 
* Richtof fen *s War tournament, an Iron Ships and Wooden Men (or whatever 
it's called) tournament, a Napoleonics Tournament, a Blue and Gray 
tournament well, you get the idea. 

That's what Origins was. That and a dealer's room, which did a thriving 
business • ' 



26 

I arrive at Perm Station at 12, with a couple of friends, just in time to 
be told that our train is, late, and won't -leave for 15 minutes. In 15 
minutes, we are told that.it. is late some more, and won't leave for ANOTHER 
15 minutes, Which is exactly what we are told 15 minutes later. 

ARRG. Eventually, the forces of Right and Justice triumphs, and Amtrak man- 
ages to scrape up a train from somewhere. We board, and my friends dis- 
appear. Probably to the bar. I don't see them againx until we get off, 
when we hunt up a taxi • 

After a great deal of cruising around the John Hopkin ' s campus", we find what 
we think is the registration building. It isn't, but we search around for 
a bit*- peering at the badly desgined* somewhat cockeyed map we got in the 
mail, and eventually find itk The line is 50 1 long. 

So I put Adam Kasanof in line* with instructions to get my badge as well as 
his when he gets to the fore of the line* I go off and play pinball for 
a while, then go down to the basement to discover whther I'm in the D&D 
session going on in 15 minutes, or one the following day.- I don r have to 
worry; not till tommorrow, at 10 o'clock.' In the morning. Jesjis, do they 
really expect me to be up by 10 at a convention? Poor planning 

But then '^oor planning" is no news* that's evident in everything I've seen 
..so far of the convention. In fact, the bnly things that were handled com- 
petently during the entire convention were the tournaments. 

I go back to find Adam and my badge. He's not in line. In fact, he's pity- 
ing D&D and HE HASN'T GOT MY BADGE. I withsfcrain my blows, and do not 

inflict 1-6 hits on his idiotically smiling face. 

Eventually, I get my badge and the keys to the dorm, and wander off with s 
some other people, in ah attempt to discover where I'll be sleeping. My 
badge continually falls off. my nylon shirt* I make scathing remarks about 
people who are too chep to buy clip badges, instead of making do with bloody 
stI;Ck-ons. > 

Eventually, we find our d^rtrf #2W#j^ hell hole, which has no air condition- 
ing, precious few lights» a badly-cleaned bathroom down the corridor, no 
running water, hard beds, no blankets, it's about 90° in the dorm, and 80 
outside. As we walk back down the corridor, we hear from the direction. of 
the. stairwell, "I'm not coming HERE when I go to colleges", a sentiment with 
Which we all agree. ... 

I go- back to~ the gaming area, wander around the dealer's "room and try to look 
like a shoplifter. I tire of this, and go to the tournament room, and go 
from bo?,rd to board chuckling at people's play. Everyone thinks I'm deni- 
grating his., play, and gets upset. I chuckle all the more. 



Npthing much happens. Some more nothing much happens. Scott Rosenbe3g meets 
Robert Sacks, and the start yelling at each other* Eventually, overcome., 
with ennui, I go into Scott's dungeon, along with some other people* 'He 
wonltlet me be a dwarvish cleric. Even though I let him be a chaotic 
sado-masochist homosexual phase spider cleric in mine. Dud. • 

I dud, out, and manage to organize a KINGMAKEH"game with Robert Sacks and Scott 
and Dil and a bunch of other : people . We go to Sacks' room, and start 'to 
play* Scott duds out; he is overly flippant. We chuck him out, and a large 
nercentage of the players decide to go as well. We are left with four plac- 
ers. .■' Somebody knocks -at the door. I open it. Lying on the floor is a can 
of beer. I, open it. Somebody has shaken it up. There is 'beer all over the 



floor. 



27 



After about 5 or 6 hours of playing a four-player KINGMAKER game,. I go to 
bed* After all, I've got that D&D thing with Gygax in the morning.- 

In the morning, I discover that Gygax's dungeon is -a total dud. As Stephen 
Tihor relies too much uppn random traps and. I place too much .reliance upon 
what I contrieve to be amusing situations (but wh,icJr, the players don't always 
so concleve), Mr.. Bygax placed an extreme .reliance upon traps of various 
sorts. The dungeon was, in my opinion, totally duddish. 

((Please note that this is not to say that Gygax cannot bfcild a competent 
dungeon; I have a number of friends who went on a wlldeme-ss expedition with 

him at the DipCon, and report that it was excellent.)) 

* , * ■ 

And the people I was playing with were none too bright, either. The first 
entrance we tried 1 to the dungeoh was a trap. As wee walk down the corridor, 
a sliding panel clpses behind us. We continue to walk, and the corridor 
dead-ends. We search for secret doors, secret panels. .' We search the floor 
for secret doers. We poke the 'cieling with £0' poles. Nothing. 

Oh Caller has someone cast a Passwall spell at the end of the corridor. 

We extend the corridor 10* Into the the solid rock'. Our air is ruining out. 

We realize we're in a trap* and the only way is back out. The caller has 1 ' 1 
someone cast a lightning bolt at the sliding panel.. . We, blast a 3" hole ,ln 
the panel. The -room is filled with ozone. Half of us faint. 

The Gm Is magnaimousj we don't die immediately. The caller spends half an 
hour dithering .about what (Bo do. Eventually, we cast Stone to Flesh on the 
panel, and hack our way out. 

It's time for the Diplomacy tournament. We've spent two hours/doing nothing. 
I leave • • " 

The Diplomacy tournament is filled with people who don't taow a Lepanto from 
Mother Hittonfe Llttul Kittons. My ally fails to attack our common enemy on 
the first turn. I ask him w«hy.' Very pained, he isj "What?? You want fee to 
violate another player's neutrality on the first turn?????" 

Dumb shit • 

I die. Come back tommorrow, they say. Sure. With my 2 J points. 

I wander around some more, doing nothing in particular. Al Nofi says he's 
organizing a kind of impromptu Designer's Panel, to be held outdoors in a 
grove. No chance to organize it, really, but 75 people show up anyway. I 
wonder what would happen if the Con had enough sense to organize something 
like this. 

The rest of that night is a fog. I think I Vent to bed relatively early. 
Like 2 or ^, .% 

I get up an hour late for the Dip tournament. Go over there anyway nothing 

else to do. Mike Rocamora resigns his 8 unit Turkey in my favor. Not sure 
why, but there it is, I louse up my build. It hurts, especially when I 
stab my ally, Russia, and I need that army. '. 



28 

I- leave on Monday for New York. We miss the train, and wait an hour for 
the next. The next is 30 minutes late, Amtrak's on the ball ggain . 

Arrive Perm station. Talke subway. Totter into bed. 

! i ! ! ! !'!! ! ! I ! I ! i f j ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 1 j ! i ! t ! ! ! ! ! ! i ! 1 1! ! ! I ! I! 9 ! ! i ! ! ! i !l M M M ! ! ! ! I I H 
FANZINE REVIEWS * ' 

IT COMES IN THE MAIL, Ned Brooks, 713 Paul St, Newport News, Virginia, 23605. 

Interesting zlne, in a sens£. The editor chronicles, day by day, what he 
gets in the mail. Each day he lists and reviews the zines he gets and cap- 
sulizes the letters. Apparently available for trade op somethingorother . 

Mythologies, Don D f Ammassa f 19 Angelll ((only 2 "l n Js, of course)) Drive, 
East 'Providence, RI, 02914 "Available for loc or editorial whim only.. " 
Fifty pages of careful agrument and thought; by- soajls of loccers. Revives 
one's faith in humanity to see that many intelligent, people gathered toge- 
ther at once. Very good indeed. 

KRANOR-RIL, CHip Charnley, 1545 Breton Rd, SE,.East Grand Rapids, Michigan, 
49506 6/$2. 

A dittoed D&D fanzine.. Contains some interesting stuff, although the t 
article oh including Vadragh-folk as a new type ■ of character is totally 
inaccurate. Fairly good ; , _ 

ASHWING, Frank Debtors, 14654 8 Av f .^{ Seattle," ;A» 981,66'. available for the usua 
As good as ever, 

MAS I FORM D, Devra Langs am, 2.50 Crown St, Brooklyn, NY, 11225. 1/75^ . 
An excellent ST zine. Mostly fiction, some non-STo. „Qne thing I have- 
noticed about ST zines^s the lack of reader participation i,e. p Iocs. 

Fantastic printing in four colors, yet. Red, green, blue and black. Its 

obviously not offset, and it looks like miraeo but ' f ouv color? • 

NO, Ruth Berman, 5620 Edgewater Boulevard, Minneapolis, Minnesbfca, 55417 . 
1/350 

This' is the last issue of N0 f an excellent zine. Ruth- I ! ll continue send-- 

lr\fc you freebies until you resume publication,, if ever. 

KABALLAHy 25-33 48th St, Long Island City, NY, 11103. 5/^2 

Also ceasing publication. What % s going on? Anyway, I d on 1 1 have to send 

HIM a freebie- — he contributes. Nyahahaha. 

HAUNTER OF THE MAIL, can't find an address or name. It-says" Printed for ' 
the Esoteric Order of ^a^on 10," so it must be something or other. An 
APA, apparency. Some comments on other zines, Day-by-day description of 
zines and letters recieved. I've sot no idea who prints the zine, though. 
Arr^". 

THE HAVEN HERALD, Stephen Tihor, 122 Henry Hall, -Princeton University, 
Princeton, NJ, 08540. SASE, I 'd imagine. 

THE HAVEN HERALD is an irregular zine printed by Stephen occasionally, and 
contains news about his D&D land, additional rules, and so on. This issue 
contained rules for anew class, Empaths, 



29 

THE JARACOSTA JOURNAL, Scott Rosenberg, 182-31 Radnor Rd, Jamaica, NY, 
11^32. S ASK. 

TJJ la Scott's equivalent to the HAVEN HERALD, It prints new about 
Scott's world and his rule changes. It is usually smaller, as a lot 
of Scott's information is printed in THH, since Scott's wotld and 
Teebs are connected. 

LILLIPUT c/o M e is dead. The sole game has been transfered to Ben 
Brossman's zine, THE; PREDAWN LEFTIST, ' 

URF DURFAL c /o Me is about: to print its fifth issue. I'm presently 
running the following Dipvarlants; Excommunication!! Near Utter Chaos; 
260 AD; Dilatory /friluvJLan; , and Stab-Happy . As well, I'm running an open- 
ended - FRIGATE variant called FRIGG ITS, And I've got openings in 
PACIFICA I, l6l8, DIPLOMAFIA, DOWNFALL OF THE LOTH AND THE RETURN OF THE 
KING II, WORLD WAR III, WAR IN THE AIR, GAMBLING DIPLOMACY, MAGIC 
DIPLOMACY II, ANACHRONIST DIPLOMACY and IE0OESIAN DIPLOMACY. And, of 
course, one can join FRIGG IT1 at any time. No game fee; merely maintain 
a subscription to U r f Durf al . And a sub is cost plus postage. 

FIRE THE ARQUEBUSIERS, c /o M e villi print ifes first' issue late this September 
It will be- the fourth D&D magazine ■ if you don't count THHand TJJ, and sixth 
if you do. ((The other three being KRANOR-RIL, ALARUMS & EXCURSIONS, and 
a zine that I'm told Spartan is putting out.)). It will be 36 pages, 
irregular, at the .same pric,e as GIGO. The first issue willh have articles 
on ; the addition 'of two new classes to D&D (Martial Artists and Empaths, ) 
adding Sex to D&D, a new class of magical items (HerbEi and Spices), a rather 
funny serialized story by Adam Kasanof on a-, dungeon trip in a typical New 
York dungeon (palled "As the Nexus Turns") and more, if that doesn't fill 
the 36 rnges. Send me some money (Yes, do. Preferably, without asking for 
anything in return.) • 

SOL III, Rebecca Baggett, 8008 Old Stage Rd , Raleigh, NC, 2?603 
Has ceased publication for the time being, at least. Or so Becky 
tells me. Oh, yeah, that's right. I printed the letter. 

VALINOR, Mike Muchnik, 2520 Hyacinth Ct, W e stbury, NY, 11590 i. ^1. 50/10. 
VALINOR \& one of the best new zines to appear in recent months. Its first 
issue had an extroard.inary number of articles for a first issue, and the 

editor seems mature and Intelligent a quality which seems strangely laokin 

in other new Dip editors. The zin'e is definitely worth the incredibly small 
price. The only drawback is the fact that the, thing is dittoed. 

DIMAN, Brad Hessel, 15 Oak Av, Tarrytown, NY 10591. l/l5^ 
Another excellent new Bipzine. The editor kas . apparently been in and out 
of the hobby for quite a while, and has now decided to pub. The zine is 
concerned with much other than the Dip hobby, and the amount of press is 
staggering. Winn * could get my subscribers to write that much press for 
U r f "Durfali 

DYNASTY, Adam Gruen, k70 North St, Harrison, NY, 10528. l0/fl>2 

Yet another new Dipzine. I'm a£rfeid I don't think as much of this one, 

though • 

THE PR11DAWN LEFTIST, B e n Grossman, 29 E 9 #9, NY P NY, 10003. 10/b>2 
Last issue I was noncommital on this zine. The first issue was rotten. But 
since then, the zine has gotten better in a steady progression. Definitely 
worthwhile. * 



30 

According to LOCUS, Orlando had 298 votes for Worldcon site, New York had 111, 
Washington 91, and Philadelphia 28. Membership until the end of September 
will be '4$ attending and #3.50 supporting. 

HUGO AWARDS s 

Novel: The Di^possesed , Ursu&a Le Guin 
Novella^ A Song for Lya, George Martin 

Novellette: Adrift off the Islets of Langerhans, Harlan Ell if? on (NOT aGaIN*) 
Short Story J The Hole Man, Larry Niven 
Editor 5 Ben Bova 
Artist^ Kelly Pre as 

Dramatic Presentation' Young Frankenstein 

Fanzine' The Alien Critic . 

Fan Writer 1 Richard E Geis- 

Fan Afctifit: Bill.flotsler ■ 

Campbell Award • P J Pi auger 
Gandalf Award 5 Fritz keiber 

H ! H i ! ! S ! 1 ! i! i ! ! ! ! ! i ! ! ! ! i ! i ! I ! ! , f !' S ! ! ! i- ! ! i ! i !' ! i ! i ! ! S i i ! i 1 1 ! U i ! ! i i 1 ! i I S li I i : 

THIS IS DIPCON???? HOW COME EVERYONE IS PLAYING D&D? 

! ! U ! ! Vs i 1 ! ! H f ! ! S H S f r! { . ! ■! S ! ! ! ! ) ! ! !'-S 1 i ! ! ! 1 i i ! ! ! ! ! ! 1 I i I i ! ! i ! i ! ! ! I i ! I ! ! S i i i' ! SS 

On Tuesday, I was in New Hampshire, On Friday," I via a in Chicago.' 

It's not really as simple as it sounds. On Wednesday, I was in New York; 
and on Thursday in Youngstown. 

I wended my way from New Hampshire to New York on Wednesday, fully intending 
to : print up GIGO that day, HA ; . It's now a month later, and NOW I r m getting 
around to typing up the 'stencils. Auuugh. 

On Wednesday afternoon, I phoned *Edi Birsan, and he told me how to get to - 
his* house,, and to be there early the next morning, around 11. (-(Yes, that's 
arly..) J 

I braved the terrors of the New York subway, and made it into Queens in time 
to be. early* I crafuped into Edi's Vega,' and we started out across the waste- 
lands of New Jersey. . We started playi-ng a D&D game, in my gunge'.on. 

"In the car with me, as well as Edi, were Arnold Proujansky, and Evan. The 
-^arae was a rather exhausting experience for all involved. 

I believe I've mentioned one of the NY Conspiracy words earlier* this" issue- 

"dud." "To prouj" is another. Arnold's Cfcqspiracy nickname is Prouj . 

^e has a rather annoying habbit of exhausting every possibility ina D&D game, 
Reeling for secret doors along every Inch of corridor, poking the celling with 
10' poles a£ he goes along, carefully examining the floor, using Detect 
lagic or Evil "or whatever constantly, smashing chests to pieces to ensure that 
10 secret comparments were missed , and so on • 

To give an example? at one point, in my dungeon, Arnold came across a neutral 
"warvish thief. The . thief tried to pickpocket the party, but was unsuccess- 
ful. After intense questioning, Atrnold killed him (which he could do with 
10 nroblem, since he was neutral.) He searched his body and found, a very 
"ew Gold Pieces. He took the dwarves' clothing off, ripped it to shreds an d 



Finding nothing, he proceeded to light a fire and cremate the dwarf*" Once 
the fire had burnt itself out, he sifted through the ashes, and found a few 
pebbles. He took them. They turned out to be gall stones* 

HIvan* too. Is something of a phonomenon. He plays games any game with 

an intenseness not bo be believed. He often fails to distinguish between 
a joke and criticism, and is this often the butt of many jokes. Im D&D, 
he plays very selfishly, points out the "rules" to the ■ gamesmaster at hDrrib 
inappropriate times (like when the gamesmaster has made clear that he isn't 
playing by those rules), plays rather selfishly (except when he is told that 
he must give things away to -appear > to be lawful) ad nauseum. He has an 
annoying habbit of wearing down the gamesmaster; if he wants something, he 
pleads for it, and continues to plead for it toitil the gamesmaster &ives in. 
In this game, he plead with me because he wanted to be a Ranger, asren though 
I didn't know the rules for Rangers. Eventually, I gave in. 

Kventually, we arrived in Youngstown* where we septn the night. Rising 

an (3 failing to shine the next morning, we set out at a perverted hour in ir" 

the morning, getting a beautiful view of the industir&al area. 

We got to Chicago late Friday, registered at the hotel, rejoined the rest 
of the New York group, and trooped around the dealer's room. Nothing of 
particular interest was feeing vended, so we escaped to a conference room 
in time for the IDA General Meeting. 

The General Meeting went well. There was a satisfactory amount of fire- 
work^, although everything seemed to be peaceful until Gordon Anderson 
rose to make his famous statement. I believe I mentioned it elsewhere in 
this issue. He sfeated that his company, "VIKING SYSTEMS INC" had tradem- 
arfeied the name "DipCon." Somebody questioned the legality -of that act, and 
Gordon said something about "abandonment of use." 

Nice fireworks. Despicable action. Destroying traditions of the hobby. 

Right on. Just what we need. That's what N3F ! needs, tooj a couple of 
good feuds. That'd liven it up. 

Getting off the subject, though. 1 - 

That night, I played D&D in Stephen. Tihor 1 s dungeon, with my magic-suer, 
Cheech Wizard. I didn't do too badly. 

Two fo our party-members, a Iwaful fighter and a s*mi-insanve cleric walked - 
out on our party, along with all their hirelings. 

We went on for a while, and it wasn't until it 'was too late that we realized 
that all we had left was a third-level cleric, a single fighter, and four 
or five ma^ic-users . A great preponderance of magic-users. 

So we got out as fast as possible. Which wan't too fast, considering that 
we'd walked through a transporter to the fifth level. 



I actually got quite a bit of sleep, and managed to get up in time for the 
Diptournament . I was Austria, and managed to hold out long enough to 
score reasonably well, at least by the somewhat silly system the tournament 
was using. I was placed on' the third board. 



After eating in a rather greasy place down the street, I returned and start- 
ed in on the next round as Prance.. England and Germany wanted a three-way 
alliance against the rest of the board, and I agreed. But I was getting 
a bit fed up with three-way Western alliances. Five of the six boards in 
the first round had had three-way Western alliances, and I had neralv been 
destroyed by one on my board. , t J 

> 

So, when Russia attacked Germany, I thought I saw a chance, and stabbed 
Germany. Just in time to be stabbed by the Italians.. I see-sawed once 
more, and turned to face the Italians. I ended bfcie game with the normal 
five French centers. Dud. 

I left the game, and wandered over to a nearby table. 

It seemed that in a D&D game in Stephen Tihor's dungeon, Walt Buchanan's 
character had twice killed Howard Mahler's character. The first time was 
excusable, as Walt didn't really know what was going on, but the second 
time was mere flippancy. 

Walt's character plead stupidity; thus, his character was known aS "Walter 
the Dumb." And Howard's character was dead, and thus was known as "Wilber 
the Dead." Wilber the Dead presented evidence via a Clerical "Speak with 
the Dead" spell. 

Tim (Robert Lipton) and Nick Ulanov were seated at one end of the table. 

They had rather foolishly agreed to pay 1000 Gold Pieces for each word they 

spoke during the trial to Walter the Dumb. • They kept on interrupting, 'and 

Sco.tt quietly kept a tally of the number of words they Tiere speaking. 

The verdict of the court eventually was that Walt had .turned 'neutral by his 

actions. 

Later that evening, Soott and Stephen started trips in adjacent rooms, as 
there were too many people who wanted to : play for just one expedition. I 
went in Scott's dungeon. I don't really remember what happened there, but 
I defintely do remember the aftermath. 

Half .way through the expedition, Bob Lipton had to leave-, so he left me in 
custody of his character; I was the obvious choice, as I had apprenticed 
my character to his. ! 

Once out of the dungeon, Mike Rocamora's character polymorphed Walter the 
Dumb into a Beholder, and the Beholder came looking for Wilber the. No Longer 
Dead. Wilber told me that Lipton had promised to defend him if Walter 
tried anything, so I told him I'd help him. He hired. a couple of hundred 
bowmen, and took them, along with Tim and Cheech, to a strategic hill. 
Soon, the Beholder appeared in the distance. Tim and the Beholder, with 
Cheech contributing an occasional spell, settled down to a Battle Royal, 
exchanging spells at a ferocious rate. 

Soon it became apparent that we were losing. Scott was using an incredibly 

stufcid system for resolving multi-man combat he interpreted the Chainmail 

system to indicate that 20 men could only inflicfei; as many hits as one man 
alone . 

Mike's character started torwards the battlefield, as we later found but, 
to help kill the Beholder he didn't really want Tim dead 



It was then that somebody noticed that Mike couldn't have polymorphed Walt 



' 33 
Into a Beholder in the first . place t . . because Mike wasn ; t high enough level 
to take a Polymprph spell. • ' 

So much for that. 

The next day (Sunday), the Diplomacy tournament was again in the morning. 
I discovered that I was Turkey on "board 3» 0** maybe it was 4. Anyway, 
I managed to hold out against an Austro-Russlan alliance until the omni- 
present Three-way Western alliance made its presence felt and conquered 
Russia. Austria then made me part of his attempted stalemate line, 
but the West made some attractive promises, and 1 ' stabbed -Austria. 
At the end of the game, I was once again an Austrian puppet, with 
two centers. 

Apparently, the tournament was the last thing at the con. The Buchanans 
packed up and prepared to- go. The conspiracy bestowed honarary Conspiracy 
ship upon the two Buchanan children, and taught them several phrases; "dud? 
"Besh is a dud" among them. When fee tried to get them to say "Buch is a 
ud," thejt wouldn't, though. I guess blood is thr.cker that Conspiracy. 

We saw them off, and, a short time later, the Michigan and points north 
crowd. Points north being Canada. : And then dudded around for a while, 
doing nothing In particular. 

Plans were made to play D&D, Middle Earth VIII, Utter Chaos, and 
Utter Chaos Middle Earth VII J, in quick sucession, but none came to 
fruition. So we went to bed. . 

In Edi's room,, I found Len Lakofka's clipboard, nhich I appropriated. It*£ 
very useful. On the top. It has two little address stickers; one says 
"Leonard Lakqfka, " and the , other says "Lenny Da LIzzard." Must be schizo- 
phrenic. f . . 

The next morning, we, rose at 6. I won't call that a disgusting hour; I 
merely thought of it as having taken a short nap in the evening, and waking 
up a few hours later to continue. I was in the r;ame car, ao I continued 
the campaign. The previous 'night I, with some help from Mat Diller, had 
come up with' a set of Sex rules for D&D, and I applied them to the game. 

This time, the player's decided to go on a Wilderness expedition^, on 
a journey to visit the King of the Elves, in the Land of Elves. They 
journeyed south, to the. great road. On the way, J :hey met a company of 
ogres, who were in the posession of the sister-blade of Stormbringer, 
The Ranger didn't really realize what it was, so he picked it up. Not 
too bright, that. The blade now thinks i'tfe his. 

They continued, and eventually hit the grefct Road, and headed eastwaad. 
They took a wrong turning, and met the Lord Haphaestus, Guardian of the 
South, Protector of Ambrusil,* Scourge of the Barbarous, South. He, being 
a paladin, made the party his "guests." H e was a bit suspic&uus, and not 
unduly so; the party was composed of ' a bisexual female magics-user with an 
oral fixation, an homosexual martial artist, and a fighter. As well as 
a mule-skinner, a cleric hireling, and the slowly mouldering body of 
a dead elf. (The elf had toeen killed by the Stormbringer-sister sword, 
and the mrty hoped that it could somehow regain its soul from the blade.; 
And a Banker. The 'Ranger and the cleric .being the only two -lawful charactf 
The Lord's homosexual female lawful magic-user fell madly in love with 
the expedition's magic user (( I can't help It; when I roll 00, I roll 00. 
Eventually they managed to escape, and made their merry way onward to 



At 3 in the morning, we 30 t in. Edi* the only driver in the car, was just 
about dead. I think the only thing that kept him awake was the D&D same. 



STAR TREK LIVES! , ' 

Jacqueline Ilchtenberg, Sondra Marshak and Joan Winston 

In a conversation with SQmeone one day, that person remarked "Life is more 
.complicated thafo it seems. " My immediate reaction vast "Wrong. Life is 
less complicated than people make it." 

Thr more I think about the latter statement, the more sensible it seems to 
mo. -Ear too many people have, throughout history, knocked themselves out 
over artificial Problems. Is Christ of the same substance of God, or of a 
like substance? How many angels can dance, on a J8i3s the head of a pin*? ' 
What does Faulkner real 1 y m^an when he says "Shimmering delapidation"? 

Anri so on, etc. So much of "philosophy" and so much offictional dissection 
is sheer, unadulterated bullshit • 

To make an obvious point, does -it really matter whether one. has free will -■ 
or one's "Rath is determined at bf.rth by thefates? Will sure knowledge of * 
one -or. the other change one's life? Will it change the fate of humanity? 
Does it really MATTER? .. ; " .■ 

To make another Point; does it" matter whether Darl, in AS I LAY DYING is a 
mranoid schizophrenic, or an artist? Win' knowledge on way or the other, 
influence any one? Is such knowledge 'even meaningfull? 

No.. I have come, to the conclusion that philosopy is '-bullshit. • ^6 that 
dissection of fiction is bullshit. " , 

I admit the possibility that I am a little mind, that cannot grasp the tnue, 
awful significance of the dilemmas of philosophy. .1 admit the possibility 
that I am so crass as to be unable' to see the significance, the greatness 

in be in* able to fully understand in every minute detail, a T ?ork of art 

to an extent that even the artist did not understand. 

I admit such a possibility. But I find it unlikely-. 

Unfortunately, this book' is, for the most part, one or the other; philosophy 
or di'ssection of fiction. A large part of the book talks about tfoddenberry ' s 
philosophy of the cliched "peace and brotherhood." And- another large part 
talks about the reasons that, say, Spook is attractive to se:r many, and that 
the show is so popular. 

The book very neatly devid^st the attractiveness of Star Trek into five parts. 
The Discover Effect, The Tailored Effect, The Spock Charisma- Effect, The 
.Optimism Effect, and the Goal Effect.. I kid you not . These M ef f ects" are 
capitialized throgghtout the book, 'Biey are treated as the sum total of 
Star Trkk. ' e 

I had a very difficult time- reading the book. After ^ every fifth paragraph, 
I began to think of gum-chewing teenager wearing tee-shirts, penciling 
"How true:" in the margins. I'd read some. Then I'd through the book away 
in disgust, crying "BULLSHIT J " p 



Agg. Eventually, I gave up. 



THERE.. IS NO PAGE 3^M ! 

After I finished printing up ..page 33#- and after £ -realized that 

35 was on the "back' of 33", I looked aroudd to find 3k, I looked high and 

low, hither and yoh» No 3^ to. be found. 

I returned- to my stencils f : and printed up the rest of the ; zine before 
continuing back to finish up this mess. 

According to the copy I wrote f or ; the DipCon report^ there should be 
' nothing between where" page 33 left off, and where 35 started up. I must 
'thus assume that there never was a page and 'that something is fucked 

' Thus; there is no page 3^. There are a few words left off the last sent- 
ence on 33? which should be leading into 35« After the trip was. over,., 
we ; got into New York. ' 

So don't worry about it. 

I've got to, though. I've still this'entire page to fill up. 1 

Well, some more Monty Python'biographles, I gules. .... .there are also 

some on the back page, in case you're interested. 

TERRY GILLIAM- For all his lovable American accent and tomboy ~goud- 
humor, Terry is ( at heart, a lovable American-'speakin g good-humored 
tomboy., and. not a dry rot and de-infestation operative as some people 
have claimed (See: MY -SON THE" DE-INFESTATION OPERATIVES, • -by Mrs. 0. 
Gilliam, published by Faber and Faber, 196l.) Terry has never been 
specifically interested in the structural rnovation of building facilitie 
nor has he ever become President of the United States of America, as 
other people have claimed. (see: M# SON < WAS A DEINFESTATIQN OPERATIVE, 
by Mrr 0 D Gilliam r published .by McMillan 1962 ) . As far as politico "are ' 
concerned, his record is spotless — -he has never gone, in for: them at 
all. ' 

Terry looks forward to a future with some major companies, including ITT, 
but it is quite likely that he won't get one. His hair is .still long, an 
his legs are only bandy if you laok- at them in a certain, way. . 

ERIC ID£H;- Eric Idle was born in Leicester on the 8th of Januajry, 18^1. 
the son and daughter of a C^Tbef Inspector of Police and Mrs. Idle, ; who 
is still ,undead . He was sanitized 9 weeks after birth, and remains the 
only member of the Python team to be so. 

Eric soon became passionately fond of Rugby football, mountainerring and 
fashion magazines for which to this day he still has several lifetime 
subscriptions . He/She was edicated at Melton Mowbray Grammar School and 
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where it took a degree in Medicine. The 
thing later qualified as a doctor at St. Bartholomew Hospital, London. 
There the creature first took to writing second-rate fadio comedies and ■ 
scripts for the then-famous David Frost (sic.) It was then that the 
beast met up with Fellini and ended a short relationship. Having no 
work one X~Mas s 'and having given up Ear Nose and Throat surgery and 
given up saying having, the object wrote • bad ' lines for Petual Clark 
shows, There the entity's creature ■ ended, but by now the excresence of 
protoplasm took a fresh interest in old empty Germolene tins and soom 
became known as an involver of men. 



t . 36 . . 

Then, thankfully, I noticed ttfa't not all the dhapters were about some 
Efffect or other • S 0 I read the chapters by Joan Winston* 

One was about herar experiences as a member of the Star Trek convention 
committee. The other was about her visit to the Star Trek set on the 
last week of filming, 

Both were excellent* They were well-written.' Amusing* Informati7e,vunny, 
interesting* In the desert of the rest of the book, they were fantastic. 

I urge all who have an interest in Star ' Trek to purchase the book, and 
read chapters 3 and 7, The rest can be disposed of.w^th the Kitty Litter. 

SOME MORE LETTERS THAT I THOUGHT IDIDN "T HAVE ROOM FOR, BUT NOW THAT I'VE 
DECIDED TO' MAKE THIS ISSUE ^8, PAGES, I DO.' 

Douglass- Carey, 11355 Lincoln St, Robertsville, OH, $4670 

.....Now, to feminism. As you say, the reviews of THE 'FEMALE MAN were not 
reviews,, 'But don't feel bad about it. Check out F&SF, Analog and Galaxy/ 
If 's reviews of the book. Altho more professional in execution, they did 
the same thing — commented on the role of women more than the book. Esp. 
the role of women in sf. 

My two dents runs like this... I'm going to compare two women authors, 
Lisa Tuttle and Brenda Pearce . Both had recent stories in Analog; the 
former "Windhaven, " the latter "Crazy Oil." Both were .hard sf. Also, 
both had lead characters* as, women. However, the Pearce story had the 
fault of knocking you over the head with the fact that Katherine was a 
woman s the story centered around her womanhood and by stressing the fact 
that she was of the female gender, proved that her position of importance 
was a quirk., Tuttle 's story had a person- Maris. She..had, because of 

tradition^ lost her humanity not her femininity. Her society accepted 

ner as a person despite her sex, rejected her as a person because of her 
orphan backgrounds 

Remember the Vulcan IDIC? The trick is to realize the differences and unite 
them without destroying the differences. Not, by eliminating the opposite 
party. SF is unique in that it promotes change by portraying change after 
%t has occuredo It does not (or should not) orpmote change by showing what 
happens without it c CErufen believe in.starf light because we read it all 
the' time. We did not get into the habbit by reading stories in which 
starf light was prohibited. 

From a- personal point of view, I treat women with much more deference than 
men— as a Gentler Sex. A male I treat badly until he proves my equal, 
a women I treat as my superior — unless she tries to lower herself to tone 
"equality" of men. That raises my dander and invokes an extreme dislike of 
the person involved. 

Is Kasanof ( s TIG -replacement coming out soon? ((In about 6 months, I think.)) 
How is Mayor Beame's lynching committee coming along? ((Well, we've got 

another three months before we have to start buying machine guns to protect 
ourselves because there's no police, and start dumping our garbage in the 
East river because noone will collect it.)) 

Douk signs the letter off with the phrase "Rklioy Swa Ton Rhee." I believe 
this is because I often sign my letters with "Rklioy Swa Rhee." This phrase 
i^ q whatchamacallit of"' "Kilroy Was Here." It originally arose in a short 



,37 

which was written by me, Adam Kasanof and Scott Rosenberg. 
EXCERPT FROM "MY SUMMER WEEKEND ON NANTUCKER" 

An orange polka-dot sphere of light and a pink trapezoid landed. Two things 
which I assumed to be "S pi cans jumped out of the sphere, and some mushy blue 
Vegans tumbled from the trapezoid. They splattered on impact, creating a 
blue, gucky, slithery mess that spread slowly. One of the dying Vegans 
managed to squeak "Ik nee-a Vi zerbl." I was informed later that this was 
Vegan ; for "Gravity!" The Spicans, large hairy things with horns, cavorted 
and cajoled over the fi&ld, making no noise. One of the Indians said "Me 
Makum good statue, and sell to Great White Father." 

I got up on a boulder, and shouted "Friends, Spioans, Vegans, Crusaders, 
Indians, Sirians, Phoenicians and Lizard -People ! Now is the time for all 
food er creatures to come to the aid of their time continuum!" 

They replied "We come to bury you, not to praise you." The Spicans said 
"Yrrk ip okk syrvo eeasnee?" They advanced at a gallop and produced 
magenta belts that they wove around their* midriff . I turned to the 
Arcturians, to discover .they had left without a trace. I quickly shouted 
"wait!" at the Spicans. They stopped dead in their tracks , and I turned 
to face them. 1 

"Now, you guys want to kill me, right?" ■ 

"Rklioy Swa RheeS" 

There you are. I admit, that's, a bit confused, but the entire story is 

a mish-mosh of confusion. Evehtualiy t the protagonist, who is never named* 

manages to save the Outer Galactic Periphery from a temporal collapse, and 

destroys or thinks he destroys J .A. M.D.I .NEE .P.N .A. , an illogical computer 

who is masterminding the eintire temporal confusion. In a couple of other 
stories, the hero," who is a member of the Inter-Giiactic Time Patrol conquers 
the forces of Temporal Chaos, and allows Right and Justice, in the form of the 
Time Patrol bureaucracy, to triumph. 

ANYWAY, BACK TO SHHE' MORE LETTERS 

Metagaming Concepts, PO Box 153^6, Austin, TX, 78?6l _ 

Thanks very much for the-comments on TSG and SC, nice. ((The Space Gamer and 
Stellar Conquest.)) Keep at the zine and it will shape up, the content is 
interesting and varied enough to go along way with. My biggest objection 
was to the heavy commentary you dispersed through everything. Mimeo is bad 
enough, I like comments at the end of things. 

A comment for John on computers, nice but I ! ll never be able to buy one 

so what. How about notes on small computers that we'll all be able to buy in 
the next few years, now that micro-processor technology is here. Big computers- 
may be like dinosaurs in all but giant data situations in the next few years 
Try ADC, MITS, WANG, and anyone else with prggrammable calculators who it 
moving into bigger applications. I'll buy a computer before a second car, 
that's for sure. 

Again, thanks for the plugs, I still don't know if zine plugs sell, butit's 
nice to see them in print anyway. 



38 

Charles Jacques, 199 Payne fid, Scarborough, ME, 0^07^ 

lam undud I am undud. One hell of a way to waste space. Why not wast the 

space constructively. What does dud mean, forinstance (What the hell DOES 
it mean, anyway?) 

About your "Editor Pills thfes Space" thing. Great, Glad you have decided 
to K&ep it. Ofttimes I think it among the best things in the zine. 
About playtesting for SPI , How does one get on there list? It sounds 

like something interesting to do, in one's spare time The Gallic 

Wars? That is going to be tough. Planning out superiority troop power 
and weapons superiority is going to be tough. Whatever ahppened to 
Saucerblitz, anyway 7 Oh, eys, I look forward to lengthy, detailed 
reviews of Origins I and DipCon. 

& William G. Biisg should be strung up by his balls. "Star Trek.. 

...typical boob tube?" AHRRHGHHHHH! You can tell him ah, 'forget it. 

About these dayglow orange sticker, they are supposedly to help move mail 
faster . tro where it is going. Revised zip code, if you will. Actually, 
its' just a bunch of shit the post office printe dup to justify postage 
hikes. I did like Bliss's explanation 6f fantasy, and hfts tirade on un- 
safe buildings, I r ll give him that. 

I am finding out that everything Houarner writes is good.^ Even his- letters. 
And, hey, .he .thinks my #tuff is okay, too. (Maybe we should set Hip a 
Mutual Admiration Society. After all, we frenchmen have to stick together.) 

((FRENCHMENS I am quite sure that a gentleman such' as Mr. Houarner has 
better sense than to be associated with such petty Quebecois as vourself.)) 

I liked your pun about Armenians being called turkeys. Quite good. Score 
one for Armenia, Sludge of the 0 C ean. 

.....What T s going on? My page 20 was upside d ownS , • • * .The Lunacon Report 
wan okay. Not great, though. U s ually I like a good balance of con 
activity, what I did. This report was too muc-h "What I did." ' You're 
slipping. 

....As to my magnificent comics column yes, you are right. Since 

intimate contact results in nuclear explosions, it is brief and infre- 
quent between N 0 va and E-M an , Their last kiss, as far as 1- can tell, 
removed 57th Street. ' . 

Remember last time. I said you were paranoid? N 0 w I have proof. You 
accused me aiSd Houarner of being in conspiracy against you. Rediculous. 
W e don't even know each other. And they'll bloody well write to me 
If they want, so there a - 

A Canadian comic company? Captain Canuck? If that isn't a put on, and 
you can send me an address to' write for info, I'll do a whole column 
on it. Canadian comics that are original are few and far between* 
(Funny. Notice a Canadian hero Is coming out roughly the same time 
Canadians are getting ripping mad .about American influence in their 
country . Symbolism? Irony?) 



SPI doesn't keep a list of subscribers . Anyone who shows -up at their 
offices on 6?00PM Friday, E '23 s t, 9th floor, who Has a reasonable 
knowledge of wargames will moat probably be able to playtest. 

The only information i have on Captain Canuck is the following article 
I saw in The Journal, Box. 1286, E X xes, Ontario, NoR lEo. 

"On March 2oth, Canada's only existing comic book company will come into 
being, having distributed 200,000 copies of CAPTAIN CANUCK #i t . 

"This' is the £fl>untr£'s first venture of this type in a long time, although 
there are custom-made publishers, such as Comic Book World of Nova Scotia. 

"The new company is called Comely Comix. Hichard £. Comely is the Presidenl 
of the publishing house, D.J. Abbott is Advertising S a ies Director. 

"Initially, distribution wasn't planned for outside of the country, but 
at last look, plans- were being changed to include distribution in the 
United States. ' 

"Captain Canuck T-shirts, posters, bumper-stickers and 'other paraphernalia 
are being planned, Captain Canuck be^ng the major character. 

"We'll have more fi>n Comely Comix next issue, hopefully." 

I never got the next issue, but you might write to TJ if, you want informa- 
tion. 



14 1 I lit H I I+1 + +-H-+-H-H lll-H I +++-H-+++++++++++++++++ t I +++++++++++++++++ 

WARGAMING COLUMN, OR A REASONABLE FACSIMILE THEREOF 



By me, Mark Edwards has dudded out. 

My last wargaming column, as just about anyone could see, was a total dud. 
It was done on the spue of the moment to fill space, and was n&ither very 
good nor very complete. - 

Essentially, my dilemma is that t'-d; -run t out of things to say about 

wargaming. This issue, I won't try to say anything! all I'll do is try 

to talk about the games which I know will be coming out in the near future. 

At the moment, the West Wall Quads, the Blue and' Gray- II Quads, The Punic 
Wars, Firegight, Invasion American, Dixie and- The War in the West are in 
various stages of playtesting. 

The West Wall Quads are four games depicting battles in France in 19^« 
Some fo the SPI staff I've talked to are iinder the impression that they 
are good, but none of the playtesters have told me so* In fact, some of 
the playtesters did not want to play one of the West Walls so much that he 
was driven to play Firefight I. The system is, of course, similar to that , 
used in the Modern Quads. Which says it all, as far an quality is concern- 
ed • 

The Blue and Gray II Quads are essentially just ^ more games of the same 
sort as the first Blue and Gray. And they are about as good quite. 



The Punic Wars, in an interesting game. The system is loosely based on that 



^0 t ; 

of Frederick the Great. That is to say, units themselves do not move; 
leader units must move them. 

The game, began as a hex game, went to area movement, and now is back to 
hexes again. But, yen though it is a hex game, the map is devided into 

provinces Zeugitania, Numidia, Novo Cafcltihago, Tartes,sus, Hispania, 

Samnium and the like. Each province produces so much treasury points 

each turn, and can support so many units somewhat like Pall of Rome. 

Essentially, one player or the other must gain control offc a certain 

number of provinces to win. The combat system is rather strange rather 

than using the "1 to 1" column on a 1-1 attack, one adds one to the die 
roll, adds 2 to the dis roll on a "2 to 1" at&ack, and so on. 

As well, the game has rules for Numidian, Syracusan kxi Sfc&llain and Southern 
Italian defection, Hispafltnic and Gallic revolt* and other diplomatic 
evnts. The probability of an even occuring is based upon the number of 
losses each player takes in a turn. 

The ccame now seems to be eminently balanced it takes about 20 years to 

determine the conflict. Which is fairly realistic, I suppose. 

One of the problems the developer is now having is reducing the rules to 
eight pa^es. He's got to get it down to eight pages, as that ts the limit 
for S&T games. 

Fire fight l 1 ^ a' section-level tactical game in modem-day Europe. It uses 
wha.t...is a further development of the Simove system ; . a {Sequential-sequential 
system. ' "Essentially, -one . player fires one unit, then the other player 
fires one unit, and so on, untillall units have fired. Then one player 
mosres one unit, and so on. - 

Since Firefight is being payed for by the &rmy (although it will be pub- 
lished commercially, ) it is being done on four levels of increasing 
complexity; Firefight I, Firefight II, Firefight III, and Firefight IV. 
Ar of this dates, the rules of Firefights I and II have been worked out, 
but not the latter two. 

Firefight I is, unfortunately, about on a level with Chutes and .Ladders. 
There are no complications; essentially the rules oover nothing more than 
Movement, Direct Fire and Opportunity Fire. Hopefjilly, later versions 
will be much more complex. 

Battle For America, I think, has been adequately covered in other sources. 
Briefly, it is a division-level game of the invasion of Americas in the" 
1980 ! s by the &outh American U n ion, the European Socialist Coalition, and 
the -Pan Asian League, The premise is that the American fleet has already 
been wiped out. 

I think it's a rather stupid premise myself if SPI is going to do future 

games, they ought to have SOME basis in reality but then, it feedbacked 

well. ,. What the subscribers sa.y goes, within limitss- 

Dixie is a folio-sized game dealing with &n alternate history in which 
the South won the Civil W a r, and a rematch is fought in the l^O's. The 
ga^e is somewhat slow moving, &nd*the combat system is a bit reminscent 
of that of WWI ( but, all in all, the game is reasonably good. 



WAR IN THE WEST I , m not even going to talk about. Gawd. Suffice itto- 
say that it's got 6 or 8 or 10 maps (the number keeps onincreasing every- 
time I talk to someone) and some obscene amount 'of counters, and production 
and air units and naval rules and and and and 

The next two games which shbuld start playtesting will be RUSSIAN R£V0LU¥- 
ION a^d the 30 HEARS WAR QUAD. There will be five battles in the 
30 Year's War Quad, which is why it's called a Quad, right? Actually, one 
of the five games will go into S&T, and the rest will be printed normally. 
Biissian Civil War will be the first of the Power ffblitics series. 

THE Power Politics Series is an offshoot of the game KINGMAKER. Kingmaker 
is a game put out by a British company called Philmar. Essentially, each 
palyer (up to a maxium 6f 40, or something like that) takes the place of 
one faction of nobles in the War of the Roses. Each faction manourres ar- 
ound the board, attempting to gain posession of the Pretenders to the, 
Throne, and attempting to kill off any pretenders not posessed by him. 
(Ghod, my grammar is disintegrating.) 

Anyway, the Power Politics Series will use the same idea as Kingmaker ;,. ther. 
will be a undetermined number of players, each of whom attempts to' fulfill 
some condition or other. They will have a high element of chance, and all 
sorts of strange things can happen. In Kingmaker, for instance, a plague 
can suddenly appear which wipes out an entire faction. In Russian Civil 

War, aflimost anything can happen from American entering the war on the 

sides of the whites to disease decimating all of Siberia. 

Essentially, there will be four sets of mutually apposing fore^s in the 
Russian Eevolutionj Whites, Reds, Blues '( Foreign interventionists) and 

Greens (Nationalist groups Ukranians, Caucasians, Armenians and so on.) 

Each player takes a number of leaders, often of opposing factions. The 
fact that his' leaders are of opposing factions will pur'; him under restraint; 
but he must still attempt to make certain objectives 4 

Another series which SPI is now trying to create is the Role Playing 
Series i This will be based upon DUGNEONS AND DRAGONS .and EN GARDE*, 
two games in which each player takes the part of a penon in a given time 
period, and plays it out, doing things which persons cf that type might do. 
SPI hasn't actually started work on any get, but it ir thought that such 
games will be feedbacked in the next issue of S&T. 

Other games which SPI Is either beginning to "do work c:i or Is considering 
are WARSAW PACT REBELLION, which would either be a strategic game . on that 
subject or a Quad game depicting battles of such a rebellion! StarSoldier, 
also to be designed by Siinonsen; and an American Revolution Quad. 

^++++++-±^+++++++++++++++++++1 H-+++-M-++H-+ -f +-f-h++++-f4H--H-!- 1 I 'k -frl f ' H -H-H- +1 1 I I H t 

Palindromes make wonderful spacefiller; 

Doc, note I dissents A fast never prevents a fatness, I diet. on cod. 
Lewd I did live - & 1 evil did I dwell 
He goddamn mad dog, eh? 

Plel's Lager on red rum did murder no. regal sj>eep. . f 
Roma sumus Amor. 
Madam, I'm Adam. 



BYTE IT! t ? 
Computer Column, John K. Llberman 



42 



This issue (month? Half-year?) I intend to deal with strange, interesting, 
or unique hardware and software. Strange things intrigue me, being somewhat 
of a strange thing myself. 

TERMINALS 

There are a plethora of, odd terminals,' CIT's and communication devices on 
the market. There are hand -he Id CRT f s , largg mini -computers disguised as 
terminals, heat-printers which work by melting wax and couplers which lose 
bits of information. 

The smallest terminal I've ever seen was shown at Boskone,' It was a Terml- 
flex HT/2. It is hand -held, has a two-line display, and retains a 1000 
character memory. In actuality, the HT/2 is not the smallest terminal made 
by Termiflex. The HT/i with only one line of display is smaller and 
negligably cheaper. For those odd people interested in such a dorice, the 
address of Termiflex is* 

Termiflex Corporation • - 

17 Airport Road 
P0 Box 1123 

Nashua, New Hampshire, 03060, 
Tel: (603) 889-3983 

The nicest CRT or visual display (there is a difference, but...) I have 
ever seen in fairly constant use is a PLATO terminal, hooked up to the 
University of Illinois CDC 6^00. It is capable of animation, which implies 
the ability to selectively erase, of copying what is on the screen to 
micro-fiche, internally, of sensing pressure on the screen and many other 
amusing things. But the Terminal Especially constructed for use with 
PLATOhs only half O-f its beauty. ^The other half is the PLATO system, which 
if! capaMi of utilizing this particular visual display to the utmost. 
With it, one can play a game of MUles Borne with the 64000 drawing the 
cards. One can draw crude phalusses which float up, down, and around the 
screen. One fan fly an airplane simulator, play. chess, or, and this is the 
great blessing, attempt to send the system down with the encouragement of 
the staff. 

COMPUTERS 

Only one item this time about computers. The Xerox 530- T he Graduate School 
of Business Administration ) (of NYU)) recently got rid of its IBM 11.30, and 
replaced it with this machine. For $300 more per month (very little in 
terms of computer renting and leasing) The Xerox 530 can replace the 1130 
as sl Remote Job Entry site, (although Xerox calls RJE "sattelite processing." 
and also includes a Magnetic Tape unit, background as well as foreground 
capacity, a couple of extra disk drives, and a protect feature for 
■'security purposes. There is only one problem. Xerox just went put of the. 
computer field. They have to support BBAJs hardware, but as for its soft- 
ware, well, some' people laughing at GBA right now, myself included. 

SOFTWARE 

A number of interesting, although not all that new facts about software. 
ATT has a chess game in fortran called COKOV. It plays a fairly good 
game of computer chess, although not as good as Northwestern's chess 
-program. Snob'ol, say some of the people I know who work for IBM, may 
be dropped by our favorite monopoly. IBM nay also be coming out with 
sonething to replace MFT f although what that something Is, I don ! t know. 



^3 

I've heard a great many rumors about IBM's FS (Future System), For your 
convenience, I will list them In order of likelihood. 

1) The new computer will be the IBM 380. why not? 

2) The new computer will not be in the J00 series again, why not? 

3) The new computer will be APL based I'm not sure what the hell 

this means. Is APL going to 
replace JCL? I s APL going to 
" f " .be the only time-sharing sys 

tern? I don't know. 
k) There will be no fixed disk packs. What??? 
5)» The system will be PL/I based. See APL objections 

6 5) There will be no assembler. , Great ! I'm ruined. 

I intended 'to write about mini- and micro-computers this issue, but un- 
fortunately did not do the research, that was necessary. Mini- and 
micro-computers are the wave of the future, but I don't have to like it. 
I am an old big computer fanatic, and really can't get much joy out of 
doing things ona small computer. Which is to say, who ever heard of 
breaking security on an Altalr 8800? I will, however, give a brief synopsi 
on what I know about these idiocies. 

MINI -COMPUTERS and MICRO-COMPUTERS . 

The PDP8 is a nice, outdated mini -computer • It can usually handle Basic 
and Fortran, as well as an odd thing aalled Focal • The FDP8 can vary in 
size and price tremendously. I know someone who has one in his basement 
which handles only Focal, because of core limitations, and it costs him 
nothing. He got it for free because .someone threw it out. At least that's 
how the story goes. The PDP8 is graded by letters in most cases. It 
can be large enough to time-share off (eg, La Salles). I have a friend 
who has broken the security on a time-shared PDP8. He seems very pleased 
at that. I'm not very impressed. 

The PDP11 i manugactured by Digital, which alos makes the PDP8. The 11 
is somewhat better, and also somewhat more expensive. Thsr worst and 
cheapest PDPll is the PDPll/10. Its uses can vary from programming in 
Fortran or other high-level languages, to use as a buffer by a large 
computer. The higher the levels go on PDPll's, the better the computer 
(which can be used as a stand-alone operation*') and the worse the price* 

She Altair 8800. UghJ Any computer which costs less that the TTY whcih 
is interfaced with it should not exist. It is a terrible machine. I have 
a friend who bought one for $400, and since than has spent about $2,000. 
more just to make the thing work in a sane fashion. Don*t be misled by 
the -low price, this is to say. You need to buy so many periferals, and 
extra memory to finally get a machine with a decent Basic, a terribel 
Assembler and maybe a text editor. A true waste of money, unless you 
really want a super-calculator. 

Write to me if you have any questions or comments about anything in this 
column. Too many people have ray address now, so I might as well give it 
out so it doesn't seem a secret. I don't really like answering letters, 
so if you have anything that might interest me, I wil 1 print it some- 
where an give you credit, but I may not send you a thank-you note. 

I believe I have one of the most complete Picture files for computers In 
the world. If you have any pictures that I don't jj for example, the 
over-printed Spock from Princeton^ or the top view of the Enterprise) 
I would be most appreciative if you'd tell me. My address is John 
K. Liberman, '300 Central Park West, NY, NY, 1002^. Actually, don't 
write me unless you really feel that it's important. 



John Liberman, address just previously, says he wishes to come out with 
a zine (dealing mostly with sf) in about 3 'months. He wishes contributions 
of all sorts, and wants me to mention that fact. The zine will be aalled 
NAKED SINGULARITY, and will contain a good deal of er ADULT materiel. 

At the moment, I'm trying to organize a D&D Apa, probably to be balled 
APAPLEXY. Essentially, it will be an APA .for the exchange of idea about 
D&D. Anyone interested can write me t . 

While we're on the subject of. Apas, John also has said that he might be 
interested in starting a Pcrnograpny apa. The 'subject matter is, I think, . 
obvious. It might be rather interesting. 

ripoffripoffripoffripoffripoffripoffripoffXripoffripfooripoffripoffripoff 

Dear Sir; 

I was perwaing the phone book the other day, when I came across your name, 
quite by chance, I assure you. I was immediately convulsed with laughter. 
After all, you must admit, your name is the sole of hilarity. 

Being quite taken with the idea of a nan with as rediculous a name as youjp 
I determined to get a photograph, an£ a genealogical chart.. The photo- 
graph proved better than expected, and fehe genealogical chart provided 
some surprises. 1 acted on my instincts, and soon found myself in posession 
of certain facts of a highly explosive nature" regarding yourself. - I, being 
good, honest citizen, was highly shocked, and thought I should immediately 
reveal these facts to the police. 

But, a thought stopped me. Suppose, I said to myself , just suppose that 
this person has an explanation .. for these facts. Suppose there is a good, 
reason. 

So, sir, I am mailing you this letter. I would appreciate a letter expl- 
aining your rather horrendous lapses, and three hundred miniature portaits 
oS Benjamin Franklin, (or thirty-thousand miniature portraits of George 
Washington, if you prefer} if you take my meaning. These portraits should 
be placed in a sealed manila envelope taped to the bottom of the garbage 
can placed so neatly before your house. 

I hope to hear from you in the near future- — say, within one week. 

Sincerely yours, 

Name Withheld. Most' sorry to be so impolite. 

TKARTERRTEARTEARTEARTEARTEARTEARTEARTEA'ETEARTEARTEARTEARTEARTEAETEARTEAR 

Tear off the aboveletter, and mail to a random person. 

Well, yuh know, when one need's spacef iller, one needs spacefiller. 

Anyone who answers succesfully the following puzzle will find himself 
attacked for being so stupid as to attempt to solve anything so stupid 
in the first place. 

"The shutters through which I had entered snapped down, and, strapped as 
I was to the floor, I coul'd see nothing but the dome-like cieling of that 
infernal saucer. 

"Seconds later a steady pressure against my back told me that we had left 
the Earth and were surging upwards. For five minutes, ten perhaps, I with- 
stood the fearful thrust of acceleration, and then I fainted — blacked out, 



I think they call it.. , 

"How long I was unconscious I do not know, but when I awoke, the same 
steady pressure told my senses that we were wtill accelerating* 

"A feeler brushed my face, and I caught the thought-wave of the ant-man 
beside me — "We shallland in one minute from now." 

"Surely, I thought, something has gone wrong. If we do not slow down 
now we must all be smashed to pieces. Yet still the pressure continued! 

"Increased* Paster and faster it seemed to me that we were Qolng^. 

"And then it stopped suddenly! 

"The shutters flew up and were resting gently and naturally on the 
lunar plafcn. 

"Now, I am no scientist, but I do know that one cannot be traveling tens 
of thousands of miles an hour one minute, and be sweetly at rest the next. 
I was not dreaming, of that I am sure? but I am at a loss. to understand 
how it came about." 

You think I'm kidding, don't Jcnu? How could anyone possibly , be" so stupid 
as to not realize what's going on? 

Well, apparently people not trained in sf don't. This puzzle was found in 
"100 Braintwisters" by D. St. P.. Barnard, ' 

Ah, well, so what. 

Khich leaves tola with the dilemma of how to fill another page and a half. 
Tumdedumdedum demdum. M o, 1 f^nt. fill a page and a Half by humming. 
No. 

Oh, yes. In the future, 1. wish to print a goodly number of book 
reports. The amount os science fictional materiel in this supposedly 
sfnal fanzine has never been particularly great, and I 'd like to make it 
a bit greater. I can write a couple of book, reports, but I'm already 
writing tha?ee-quarters of the zine. I'd really appreciate it if some of 
you could write a report or two. 

Ah, 1 see I miscalculated. It's really only a page, since the next page 
is only a half-page, to leave some room for the address. 

% nominee for the 1975 H ugo for Best Dramatic -Presentation will, of cours 
be Monty Python ana the Holy Grail. • • 

Nick Ulanov, as a staff-member of the Prince tonian got tickets to the opec 
ing of Monty Python and th e Holy Grail • 1 through somewhat devious raani: 
ulatlons was able to use one of them. 

At the opening, each person was handed a folder which contained biographi- 
of certain members of the cast. Smoe X need some space-filler, some of 
them are herewith printed. 



k6 

JOHN CLEESE- John Cieese was born in 1939* 2k2 years after the Treaty o 
Ryswick, which ended the. bitter conflict between France and the cbalitic 
of England and her allies. In the early i960's, over 650 years after 
the first u nion of the Swiss Cantons, John was delighting audiences 7 
of fully paid members at the Footlights Club at England's Cambridge 
University. 

In 1966, a great year,. iBor the Methodists who celebrated the 200th 

Anniversary of one of their founders, Samuel Wesley — >John began 
writing and appearing in The Frost Report; and in 1968, 5^3 years 
after the bur&Ang of Jan Hus, he wrote and appeared in AT LAST THE 
19^8 SHOW. Hfe joined MONTY PYTHON in 1969 and has beein doing 
extremely silly things with a small group of friends for about five 
years now. 

John is married, but, unlike Gustavus Adolphus - the Lion of the North 

- he has a daughter Cynthia. John's favorite color is money, and 
his hobby, unlike Cromwell, Dosboyevski, and St. Stephen is avoiding 
anything unpleasant. He lives ; in a fashionable part of London which 
is still being knocked down. 

MICHAEL PALIN- Michael Palin, who plays the part of Sir Galahad, and 
also contributes cameos as the first sentry, -the carpenter, Dennis 
the peasant, the second monk and the Lord oS Swamp Castle, is the 
least interesting of the Monty Python group, and consequently the 
hardest to write this sort of promotional biography about « While not 
in any way an unpleasant man, he Eather lacks those exciting quirks 
of character frhat give the other members of the group their individtial 
charsima. Nevertheless, Michael seldom forgets his lines, and is dist 
tinguished by his ready and cheerful acceptance of those less rewarding 
roles that inevitably crop up in an extended comedy series. 

He is married to an old girl friend of several of the members of. the 
group. They live, with their various children, in the Welsh quarter 
in London's Hempstead. Michael is five fee, and eight inche.s tall, 
and his eyesight is quite good. 

Once when he was on a holiday in Majorca, a small piece of paper ad- 
hered to his sandal for several minutes, causing moderate amusfement 
among the onlookers 

GIGO 

Greg Costikyan 
1675 York Av 

m, t NY, 10028 ^ f/ 

ADDRESS C0tffg5e**eif^E.QUfelfef > 
^gTOHN^m^AGE GUABAJPT-EaSP 



(" p ^-_Cover ' arr'is by flf 



j "tTCouldn T t-*find-,any place 
^.,tJ*e -ack*i£)wledgement».,....So. ) )' 




J 



end this, the fourth issue of GIGO, I look out the window from my lordly 
ige point from ray thirty-first floor apartment, looking out over the ^ "s 
\s* As I look, it begins to rain. I wonder a bit of all those poo3 * 
■nfortunatea who will never know great joy. I turn to my typewrite 

hat do the Simple folk do?